First Impressions
by Laburnum Steelfang
Summary: Because everyone in this fandom has to do an account of the ram-raid at some point. Dark humour, mostly-onesided slashiness between Murdoc and 2D, gore because parts of it are about someone getting hit with a car. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

_Nothin' like ram-raiding for fun,_ Murdoc thought to himself. Ah, the speed, the screeching of tyres, the cheering of his drunk pals in the back seat, the crashing sounds of breaking glass, the sorta punk-looking kid with the terrified expression standing directly in front of the ca_aaaaaaaarrrrrrgh ..._

He tried to hit the brakes, but the number of dubiously-legal substances he'd taken before setting off had dulled his reflexes significantly, and the car had already run over the kid's head and crashed into the opposite wall.

There was an ominous silence.

Murdoc had never in his life experienced guilt, but many times he had had the sensation that maybe, just maybe, he'd have been better off _not_ having done whatever it was he just did. Mostly it came during a hangover and was easily shrugged off, but sometimes it was stronger; like, for example, when he was standing in the wings of the stage at the local talent contest in one of many embarrassing costumes and thinking maybe he shouldn't have told his father he wanted to be a singer. Or, when he was nine, thinking maybe he shouldn't have shown the creepy new dinner lady that trick where he licked his own eyebrows. At this moment, it was stronger than it had ever been. Still not guilt, no, but anger at himself for doing something so stupid, at the kid for being in the way, and at the world in general for screwing him over once again.

"Oh boy," he groaned, getting out of the car to assess the damage. "We are so fucked."

"Correction," came Tiny's voice. _"You're _fucked."

Murdoc snapped back to face the car, the rest of the gang also rapidly leaving the vehicle. "What?"

"You're the one whose fingerprints are on the wheel, and this thing was your idea," snarled Billy, prodding Murdoc in the chest. "I ain't sticking around 'ere!"

The others nodded, and vanished into the night before Murdoc could respond. He swore and shook a fist in the general direction of the exit before remembering the kid under the car. _Oh. Yeah. Better take care of that._

He grabbed the limp body by the ankles and hauled it out with ease – the kid seemed to weigh almost nothing. The blue-haired head emerged, leaving a trail of blood and unmentionable goo which Murdoc hoped wasn't brain matter. If the kid was dead, he really was fucked.

He rolled the kid over, looking at the blue hair – what did you call someone with blue hair, anyway? Bluehead? Bleunette? Or rather, bleunet; the kid was a boy, he saw properly now, about nineteen years old, pixie-featured and pale under the blood and wounds. For a moment Murdoc thought the kid _was_ dead, until he took a struggling breath and his eyelids twitched. Something disgusting trickled from under one eyelid. The broken nametag hanging off his shirt read "STUART".

_Wait, don't I know this kid?_ Murdoc thought, as he gently poked at the boy's ribs, checking for anything broken. Hey, yeah – he was the one who'd been on duty at the shop last week when Murdoc was scouting the place out. Had to endure a sales pitch from him. He'd hated the boy on sight; the Pollyanna smile, the chirpy friendliness, the goddamned irritating nasal whine of a voice ... but then the kid had actually started to play the keyboard he was showing off. He played pretty damn well, too, and when he was really starting to get into it he'd burst into song and _holy shit,_ you wouldn't have thought that voice belonged to the same person! Sang like a ... well, Murdoc felt slightly ashamed for thinking "angel" because a) it was horribly cliche, b) it sounded impossibly gay to think that about a teenage boy, and c) it went against his Satanist sensibilities, but it was the best description he'd been able to think of at the time. Murdoc had made his excuses and left with the kid's voice running round his head, not sure why he was so fascinated. Wasn't like he was gonna see him again ... except he had.

Murdoc nearly panicked as he looked back down. The boy – Stuart – seemed to have stopped breathing. Was he breathing? Hard to tell. What was it you were supposed to do if someone wasn't breathing- oh Satan, did he have to do _that?_ Begging the powers Above and Below to make sure that his father and brother would never, ever find out about this, he gripped the boy's hair and pressed their mouths together, breathing out hard into the unconscious boy's lungs.

The detached part of his mind was pretty sure he was doing it wrong. Another part, which sounded oddly like his father's voice, was screaming at him to stop, what if someone _saw_ him? A third part thought curiously _Hmm. Tastes like bubblegum,_ and before he realised it his tongue had eased past Stuart's lips. The second part of his mind went beserk, and the first part thought _Okay, now you're_ definitely _doing it wrong._

All three thoughts came to an abrupt halt as Stuart breathed out, giving Murdoc a mouthful of bloody spit in the process. Apparently his breathing had just slowed down, not stopped. Murdoc backed away, scrubbing at his mouth in disgust.

_He's breathing and his pulse seems to be going steady, that's good. Okay, okay, c'mon, Murdoc, what's that thing you're supposed to do again? Recovery position. Yeah. Pretend he's drunk, you've dealt with _that_ often enough after parties ... roll him onto his side so he doesn't choke. Yeah._ Murdoc watched himself check the kid over in a detached way. Some part of his mind recognised the symptoms of shock; must be because of the physical shock in the car wreck, there was no way he was that upset about a total stranger. He was only helping the kid to save his own arse – his prints were all over the car and the coppers already had them on record from his earlier indiscretions, and the car was totalled so he couldn't use it to get away, so he'd most likely get caught anyway, but if he kept the kid alive at least he might get in slightly less trouble.

Now he thought about it, it was oddly funny. From ram-raiding and theft to potential murder in less time than it takes to hit the brakes. Satan would be proud if not for the sheer sloppiness of the way he'd done it. Murdoc started to snigger, then to laugh, until finally he was howling with laughter and thumping the floor with his fist. The mostly-ignored sensible part of his brain was pretty sure this was another symptom of the shock. Or possibly it actually was that funny. Even Murdoc finds it hard to tell with his sense of humour.

At some point, the police and the ambulance must have pulled up outside. Murdoc didn't hear them until they burst in, only to see him crouched beside the knocked-out boy, hands and mouth covered in blood, laughing uncontrollably.

When he thought about it later in the lockup, he decided he probably could have made a better first impression on the arresting officers. Then he thought _Made a damn good_ impression _on that kid's skull, though ..._ and started laughing again.

**(Author's Note: Murdoc is doing CPR Very Very Wrong here. It's not meant to be done unless the victim has clearly stopped breathing, and it definitely doesn't involve tongue. Do not attempt CPR unless you are really sure you know what you are doing. Don't go round running over people's heads either, but if you didn't already know not to do that I don't think anything I can say would stop you. The symptoms of shock are pretty accurate, though – I'm speaking from experience here. I was in a minor road accident myself a couple years back (came out with nothing worse than bruises and nobody else was hurt at all) and I actually did spend the rest of the day giggling uncontrollably. The term "bleunet" is used ironically here, as the LJ community Fanficrants has had numerous entries about how stupid the word "bluenette" sounds.)**


	2. Chapter 2

The customers in the bar looked up at the crashing and cursing noises coming from just outside the door.

"Bloody ... buggerin' ... useless ... WHY ARE THESE THINGS SO HARD TO STEER?!" A louder crash and a thump. "Oh, fuck it Stuart ya soddin' useless lump!"

Amid much clattering, Murdoc Niccals backed carefully into the bar, clumsily pulling a wheelchair in which a blue-haired teenager was not so much sitting as heaped haphazardly in a tangle of his own limbs. Judging by the noise and the rising bruise on the boy's face, he'd just fallen out of the wheelchair.

Ignoring the stares, Murdoc shoved the wheelchair up to the bar and flopped down on a barstool. "I need a drink. Usual, please."

The bartender stared in horror at him and pointed at the clearly-unconscious wheelchair-bound boy. "Um, did that kid just knock himself out?"

"Nah, he's been out for ages. One more knock on the 'ead won't do any harm."

The bartender decided he didn't want to know and busied himself getting the beer. If it had been anyone other than Murdoc, he'd probably have questioned further. This was actually not the weirdest thing Murdoc had done, but if he thought too much about all the other incidents his ulcer started playing up and he just did not need the hassle.

Murdoc took the beer, leaned back on the bar and glanced down at Stuart. Huh, the kid was probably better off with Murdoc than with his parents, they couldn't really love him if they inflicted him with a name like that. You'd think if your surname was Pot you could come up with something,_ anything,_ to name your kid other than "Stu". And hey, he was certainly attention-grabbing, even if it was a pain hauling him around; everyone in the pub was looking at them now, which was fun. Maybe having him around wouldn't be so bad ...

His eye caught five very familiar faces in the corner. The gang were sitting at their usual out-of-the-way table, gawking unashamedly at the kid in the wheelchair. He put the beer down and stalked over to them, the drama of the moment spoiled somewhat when he stopped halfway there and turned back for the wheelchair.

"Hello," he said coldly.

"Uh, hi. Nice t'see you," chuckled Billy-Boy nervously. "So, uh, you got off then?"

"Well, I'm not in jail, as you can plainly see, no thanks to you lot. But no, Billy me lad, I did not get off unpunished. See this?" Murdoc pointed at Stuart. "Thirty thousand hours of community service – yes, thirty thousand hours, you heard me – plus no less than ten hours a week of looking after this long streak of misery. He's in a coma, he needs watching round-the-clock, and yours truly got roped into that happy little job. And frankly I'm startin' to think jail would have been better."

Munch blinked at the comatose Stuart. "Why did you bring him here?"

"Well, I'm not going to let my routine get messed up by some dozy little bugger who broke my car with his head, am I?"

The lads stared and shrank away from him.

Crusher broke the silence. "Um. Muds? You're ... you're hauling around a dead guy."

"He's not dead. Well, maybe brain-dead."

"Even so. That's just beyond fucked up, man."

"Fucked up nothing. You know what's fucked up? You leaving me alone to face the music!" Murdoc snapped, banging a fist on the table.

Billy sniggered. "Hehehehe, 'music' ... see, it's funny 'cos it was a keyboard shop ..." He saw the others glaring at him and wilted. "... I'll shut up now."

"You do that." Murdoc turned back to the others and resumed bitching. "Do you have any idea how much shit I went through because of this stupid plan?"

"'Stupid pla-' ... it was your idea!" Tiny spluttered.

"Damn right!" Crusher stood up, looming over Murdoc, grabbed him by the collar, and hissed into his face "Your band! Your plan to st-" he remembered he was in public and quickly rephrased, _"-get_ the stuff! And it was _def'nitely _your idea to stay behind when anyone with any sense would have run like we did!"

"And it's only because I stayed behind that that little bugger in the wheelchair's alive!" Murdoc snarled back. "Well, sort of. But if I hadn't stayed, you would have murder on your consciences, _murder!_ Maybe_ I_ don't care about the kid but I did you sissy bunch a bloody favour! Always were squeamish about death, you lot!"

"Hey, it's not our fault you can't drive!" Rocky objected. "That kid's hurt because of you, not us, and he's not our problem! Why did you bother? You don't never help nobody unless there's somefin' in it for you!"

"Y'know, my mum knows someone who works at the police station," Billy said, looking nervously sideways at Murdoc and shuffling closer to the door, ready to run, "an' she says when they came in you had yer tongue down his throat."

Murdoc spluttered incoherently, his usual ready wit paralysed completely at this outrageous claim. Well, not so outrageous, but ...

The others looked at him incredulously and shrank back once again. Crusher wrinkled his nose and said "Eeeeuurgh."

Rocky grimaced. "Now that is a new low. Even for you, Niccals. And this is me sayin' that, an' I saw that thing you did with the cat and the watermelon and the box of fireworks."

"Hey, we agreed we were never going to mention that agai- what am I _saying?"_ Murdoc attempted to redirect his train of thought. "Why the hell would you think I'd do something like that?!"

"Because it's you," Rocky pointed out. "So did you?"

"No!" People were staring again, but this time it wasn't the good kind of staring. Murdoc really, really hoped that they couldn't hear what was going on, and that Billy-Boy's mum's friend hadn't been spreading that rumour around too much. "I thought he'd stopped breathing, so I-"

"You snogged him because you thought he was dead? You think that makes it _better?!"_ Munch looked as if he didn't know whether to laugh or run.

"That is NOT what I meant! Never heard of mouth-to-mouth rescusiwhatsit?"

"Hey, I heard a joke about that," said Tiny, demonstrating a knack for horrendously bad timing which could probably be put down to the numerous drugs in his system. "How do you tell someone you're into gay necrophilia? In dead Ernest."

Everyone in the pub who wasn't already staring promptly started staring when Murdoc yelled "I AIN'T GAY AND HE'S NOT BLOODY DEAD!" The room then emptied rather rapidly.

Munch chuckled awkwardly. "Uh, yeah, so we'll just be leaving ..." The lads got up, backing away from Murdoc as if he was about to attack them, which he may in fact have done if not for the small sensible part of his mind reminding him that he was in deep enough shit already. Rocky petted Stuart's head as he left and said "G'bye, Sleeping Beauty," with a snigger.

Murdoc groaned and rested his head in his hands. Well, he'd really done it this time. He glanced up at the barman, not really expecting sympathy and not surprised when he didn't get it. The barman simply continued to stare at him, finally breaking the silence with "Something's wrong with you. Seriously wrong."

"Took you that long to notice?" snapped Murdoc, grabbing the wheelchair and shoving it towards the door. "Ah, we don't need 'em, do we, dent-head? Just you an' me now."

Hoisting Stuart into the car, he continued to talk to the comatose boy. "First order of business, I think, is a little revenge. Next time we see the probation officer he's gonna be _very _interested in certain things the lads have been doing. Hehehe."

He drove off, not bothering to strap either himself or Stuart in, shoving Stuart back onto the seat when he flopped forward and hit his head on the dashboard. Murdoc glared briefly out the back window.

"Second order of business? Find a new pub."

**(Author's Note; "In dead earnest", geddit? ... Look, I didn't say it was a GOOD joke. I picked up the gang's names from other fics, and I don't know much about them – if anyone has a link to a picture of them or something I'd appreciate it. No, I don't know what he could have done with a cat, a watermelon, and a box of fireworks, but there's gotta be something.)**


	3. Chapter 3

**WARNING: This chapter gets fairly dark and squicky. Nothing too graphic, though.**

The wheelchair clattered up the last flight of stairs. Murdoc fumbled the keys out of his pocket and into the keyhole, jerked open the door, and irritably shoved Stuart through it.

It was now several months after the accident, just about to move from autumn to winter, and Murdoc was getting heartily sick of dragging Stuart around with him. Technically he wasn't required to, but it was better than sitting in the hospital for ten hours or more every week, and the doctors had said it might be good for poor old Stu to get out and about – some coma patients retained limited awareness of their surroundings, and maybe a change of scenery would help him somehow. Not that the scenery in Murdoc's bedsit was all that exciting. The place was covered in dust, hair, muddy bootprints, and various types of unmentionable grime. He'd been forced to tidy the floor so he could move the wheelchair around, but every other flat surface was stacked high with junk. The window frame was stuck and the pane was cracked, and when the room contained two people, a wheelchair, and a surprisingly well-cared-for bass guitar and speakers stacked in the corner, there was barely enough space to turn around.

"Yeah, I know it ain't much," he grumbled to the unresponsive Stuart as he yanked the kid's coat off, dumped it behind the door, and stripped himself down to his underwear – no point making a fashion statement, he was in his own home with only a braindead kid to watch. "But at least I'm on the corner of the top floor and there's nobody in the room next to me, so I've only got the people downstairs complaining about the noise from El Diablo." Murdoc gestured at the bass guitar. "Y'know, one of these days I'll get my hands on a mobile home. Always liked that idea. That way, wherever my dad and brother are, I can make sure I'm somewhere else, somewhere really far away." He smiled, almost wistfully, then scowled at Stuart and poked him. "You wouldn't know anythin' about that, though, you spoilt little mummy's boy."

He'd met Stuart's parents at the trial, obviously. David and Rachel Pot. Seemed like nice people. A mechanic of some sort and a nurse. He'd tried to lighten the mood after the trial by making what he considered to be an obviously-joking pass at Mrs Pot, and Mr Pot had held him still in an armlock while Mrs Pot kicked him in the groin. Repeatedly. In front of the press who were covering the trial, and the video footage had ended up on the evening news. Still, he'd managed to persuade them to let him watch Stuart for more than the required ten hours per week, since he'd managed to watch Stuart a few times without killing him; it counted towards his thirty-thousand-hour sentence, and the more he did the sooner it would be over, so the sooner they'd see the back of him. Still take several years, but they had all the time in the world ... For some reason, thinking that while looking at the comatose kid gave him an odd painful squeezing feeling in the chest region. Pity? Nah. Must be heartburn. Yeah, that was it. Probably.

He punched Stuart in the chest out of general irritation. The kid didn't seem to respond, so he tried again. And again. Still no response, so he tipped the kid out of the wheelchair. Stuart landed on his face, rump in the air, and still didn't move. Murdoc kicked the boy's upturned behind for good measure.

"Little punk," he muttered. "Wrecked my car, wrecked my life ..." He dug around in the battered cabinet for the remains of a bottle of vodka.

Some drinking and a lot more complaining to the unresponsive Stuart later, Murdoc was bored and his throat was sore. He examined the still-unconscious kid more closely. The kid's eyes were shut at the moment, but sometimes they flickered open – he'd been disappointed when it first happened as he'd thought it was a sign the kid was waking up, but no, apparently that happened with coma patients sometimes. When Stuart's eyes opened, one was still normal, if vacant-looking, while the other had been damaged in the accident and was now a rather nasty black colour. At first glance Murdoc had thought the kid's eye had come out completely, but the doctors assured him it was just an eight-ball fracture; the eye had been pushed inwards and filled up with blood, causing the blackness. Still not pleasant, but the kid might even be lucky enough to be able to see out of it, if he ever woke up ... As for the blue hair, Murdoc had assumed for a while that it was dyed, but it hadn't grown out since the accident, and when he'd changed the kid's clothes the hair everywhere else – what little there was of it – was blue as well. Stuart's eyebrows looked black, but close up he saw they were also blue, albeit darker than the hair on his head. Weird. Either the kid was a natural blue, or his parents had been doing something deeply disturbing to him with dye when Murdoc wasn't around. Murdoc shuddered at the thought. Seriously weird family.

Murdoc shivered suddenly. Had he forgotten to turn the radiator on? He checked. Oh shit, the heating couldn't have gone off _again ..._ Damn, did he hate this place. Did he have a spare blanket? He checked under the bed. Yeah, there was one. He'd meant to use it for Stuart, but ...

"Looks like yer out of luck, dent-head," he chuckled, wrapping the blankets around himself.

He stared into the bottle, musing on his predicament. Well, at least he'd come up with a way to pass the time with the kid. He'd been very pleased with his idea of "testing to destruction". Seeing exactly how much damage he could do without killing or waking the little bugger or leaving too many marks which could tip off the doctors, though that last one wasn't much of a challenge – they accepted his lame excuses about most of the bruises as being caused by Stuart being dropped accidentally or Murdoc losing control of the wheelchair and tipping him out (evidently they knew the things were a bugger to steer). Flushing his head down the toilet had been fun, as had prising up his eyelids and poking at his damaged eyeball. He amused himself with thoughts of shoving the wheelchair down several flights of stairs and seeing how long it took before the kid fell out. Couldn't summon up the energy to do it right now, but it sounded like a good plan. Huh, the lads would've appreciated it. He missed them. Hadn't spoken to 'em since that argument in the pub. Bastards, going around spreading a rumour about him snogging a dead guy.

Another thought occurred to him, this thought dark enough to surprise even him ...

_Well, I've always thought; if you're gonna be accused of something, you might as well do it._

Murdoc grinned to himself, shoved the blankets down to the foot of the bed, and hauled Stuart onto the bed next to him, muttering "Time you earned yer keep."

He unbuttoned the jeans he'd managed to fumble the kid into (he refused to be seen dragging around a guy in a hospital gown) and yanked them off, along with the kid's shoes, not bothering to remove his T-shirt. Nothing interesting up there. Under his clothes, the kid was wearing a clumsily-fastened adult nappy – now that was a turnoff, but hey, easily removed.

"Better not have pissed yourself again, dent-head," Murdoc warned Stuart. He checked. Nope. Good. He dropped the jeans and nappy on the floor and shuffled around so Stuart, clad only in socks and T-shirt, could lie face-down on the bed. From the back he did look sort of like a scrawny-arsed girl. Murdoc's boot-print was already forming a reddish-purple bruise on his right buttock. Murdoc grinned and lightly slapped it for good measure, then started to undo the front of his own underwear.

Suddenly, the voice in his head came back. _Whoa! What am I doing?_

_What's it look like I'm doing?_ Murdoc thought irritably back at himself.

_Seriously, that's sick. Really sick. Even for you ... me ... us ... whatever._

_So?_

_Remember when you were nine?_ the treacherous little voice continued. _You sure you really want to put someone else through that?_

_Yes,_ Murdoc told himself firmly._ I got over it, so can he, assuming he finds out, which he won't. Little sod owes me, anyway._

_What if he wakes up?_

_Oh, come on, what are the odds of that?_

_What were the odds he'd be standing directly in front of the car in the first place?_

That did give Murdoc pause for thought. Knowing his luck ... He shrugged. _Eh. Kid looks like a poof anyway, he'll prob'ly thank me._

_According to your brother _you_ 'looked like a poof' at that age, and I doubt you'd appreciate it if you were him. Then again, look at what you're doing ..._

_Hey! This means nothing! You're me, you should know that! Why am I even talking to you?_

Murdoc looked back down at Stuart. The kid was lying still, breathing softly, flat on his front with his left cheek on the filthy pillow. If Murdoc hadn't known better he'd have thought the boy was asleep. His mouth was slightly open, his eyes closed. He looked ... Murdoc's mind rebelled at the idea of using the word "pretty" and replaced it rapidly with "peaceful". Murdoc forgot all about his inner debate and simply stared.

As Murdoc watched, the kid's eyelids flickered slightly and he made an almost inaudible moaning noise.

Murdoc practically jumped out of his skin, shoving Stuart off the bed in the process.

"Shit!" he yelled, pressing back against the wall and hoping the kid hadn't actually woken up. That would be fun to explain. He waited, pulse pounding, until he figured it was safe, then looked over the side of the bed. Stuart was now lying limply on his side, legs tangled together. His forehead was lightly creased, as if wondering what was happening to him, but his breathing was still low and steady.

The impact of exactly what he had been about to do hit Murdoc like a hammer. He wasn't quite sure whether the feeling was pride or horror, but it was certainly a shock. Nor was he sure whether it was that or the vodka that was responsible for the rising taste of bile in his throat. He swallowed hard and muttered to himself, "Yeah, that's going too far. _Way_ too far."

He needed sleep. He'd try to work out what the heck this was about when he'd got his head back together a bit. He lay down, tugged the blankets back over himself, and faced the wall. He rolled back over and looked back down at Stuart. Oh yeah, should probably sort him out first. He re-dressed the kid and sat him back in the wheelchair, got back in the bed, and faced the wall again.

Seconds later, he rolled back over and looked the kid in the face. The kid's eyes might be shut, but he swore he could still feel the kid looking at him.

"Stop starin' at me like that!" Murdoc snapped, shaking a fist at Stuart, who predictably did absolutely nothing. "Look, I didn't _do_ anything! No harm done, right?" Still nothing. "No, I do NOT feel bad about it! Fuck you, dent-head!" Still nothing. Murdoc spat on the floor. "Little fucker ..."

What was this weird feeling he was getting? Oh. _Oooohhhh._ So _that_ was what guilt was like.

Fuck, he was cold. Hadn't really noticed till now. He glared back at Stuart and snarled "And don't you think for a minute you're comin' back in here! What is this, some kind of bad sitcom?"

Stuart, ever reliable, did nothing.

Murdoc sighed, got out of bed, took off the top blanket, and tucked it around Stuart. He dug around in the variably-clean clothes shoved randomly in the cupboard until he found a thick sweater, tugged it on, and got back into bed. Better, and with marginally less loss of dignity than dragging Stuart back in with him. He wasn't _that _drunk.

Murdoc looked at the ceiling, wondering exactly what to think about this whole business.

"Fuck, he really is ruining my life. I have a _conscience_ now."

**[Author's Note: Bwahahaha. I get to disappoint the rapefic fans and the fluff cliche fans in one fell swoop. Just to cover my tail, I reiterate: Don't Do What Murdoc Does.) **


	4. Chapter 4

Murdoc stared blankly at the limp form in front of the car, not really sure whether he was imagining things. He blinked. Nope, Stuart was still there, flopped on the tarmac. Yes, he really had just managed to run the kid over _again._ That was impressive, in a really disturbingly idiotic way.

_There's gotta be a curse on either that kid or my car,_ he thought lightheadedly. _Hope it's not the car._

Nobody was moving to help the kid. Nobody wanted to be remembered as being involved. Ah, such a wonderful display of human selfishness. Would have done the Satanist's heart good any other time, but he actually was worried about the kid. Because of the court order. Really. Absolutely no concern about the kid personally at all.

The kid seemed horribly still, even for a coma patient. After living with him for a year, Murdoc could tell.

Just as he reached for the car door handle, though, Stuart's legs twitched. Murdoc blinked, wondering if he'd imagined it, but no, the kid twitched again, then shakily started to push himself up. Gasps and shrieks arose from the crowd.

_Oh shit, I've created a zombie. Where am I gonna get a decent supply of brains on short notice?_

The kid propped himself up on the nearest car, moving jerkily. Only to be expected, he hadn't used his muscles in a year, so he was a little out of practice. Murdoc saw now that his chest was heaving. Zombies didn't need to breathe. The kid was _alive?_

The kid turned around, and Murdoc's thoughts screeched to a halt.

Zombies didn't bleed either, and Stuart was quite definitely bleeding a lot. Sudden contact with tarmac tends to do that. Most of his face was scratched up pretty badly. His hair was spiked up even more than usual, and his mouth was hanging slackly open, showing that his two front teeth were missing. What was really shocking, though, were his eyes. At first glance, they were apparently gone. Murdoc knew better; eight-ball fracture, wasn't that what the doc had called it? Poor old Stu had had one in his left eye after the first accident, and now it looked like his right eye had one too. Huh, what were the odds?

Once again, Murdoc found several parts of his brain trying to make themselves heard at once. One part thought _Get him to the hospital NOW! If he dies you're fucked worse than ever!_ Another thought _Hey, you know, if he can still play and sing like he could when you first met him, maybe you could make the band work again ... just sayin' ..._

A third part said _Are you _sure_ you're straight? Like, really sure? 'Cos once he's cleaned up a bit, damn, I don't think even Dad could blame you for-_

"Now is not the time!" Murdoc muttered, slapping himself on the head. He continued to stare, awestruck.

The boy looked around, raised his hand, and a lazy smile spread over his face. The crowd held their breath.

"Hi," he squeaked, and collapsed.

Murdoc was out of the car and at the kid's side, yelling "SOMEONE CALL AN AMBULANCE!" at the crowd, before he even realised what he was doing. Looked like the year in the coma had left the kid's legs rather weak.

"Whoa, whoa, easy there, kid, easy, it's okay, please don't die, please don't die," he gabbled, stringing together a stream of vaguely comforting nonsense from bits and pieces of medical dramas he'd seen. Stuart was staring at the sky – at least Murdoc assumed he was, it was hard to tell with those blank black eyeballs – and humming something Murdoc recognised vaguely as Stravinsky's "Rites of Spring". He couldn't remember where he'd heard that. Wasn't like he even _liked_ classical music. "Okay ... hold still, lemme see if anything's broken." He poked awkwardly at the kid's ribs and arms with one hand, holding up the other in front of Stuart's face. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Uhh ..." The kid blinked stupidly and spoke in a raspy voice. "You're holding up fingers? Where?" He looked around and yelped, clawing at his face. "Aaah! I'm blind, I'm blind, it hurts and I don't know where I am and I'M BLIND!"

"Whoa, whoa, calm down. Breathe. Slowly." Murdoc did his best to clear the blood and gunk away from in and around the kid's eyes, especially the damaged one. He wasn't as gentle as he could be, and Stuart screamed throughout the process, but finally he'd got the worst of it off. "Okay, that should help. Can you see better now?"

"Haaahh ... yeah, a bit. Still blurry an' it still hurts, but it's better. Thanks. Whew." Stuart squinted. "Hey, I know you! Didn't you come into the shop yesterday?"

"Ummm ... it ... wasn't exactly 'yesterday', as such." Murdoc scratched awkwardly at the back of his head, wondering how the hell one broke this kind of news.

"Huh?"

"See, you were, um, in a car accident, and you've been in a coma ..." A nasty idea struck Murdoc, and he grinned. "For a hundred years! Yeah, like Sleeping Beauty!"

"What?!" Amazingly enough, it looked like the kid bought it! Damn, his brains really must have been scrambled.

Murdoc sniggered. "Nah, I just said that so you'd feel better when I told you the real time. It's been a year." _There, consider that payment for all those times I had you alone and didn't fuck you,_ he thought smugly.

"A ... a year?!" Stuart didn't look like he felt better. His face crumpled up like a toddler's and tears gathered in the corners of his eyes.

"Don't worry, you'll be fine, I've got the hospital's number ..." Murdoc pulled out his phone and dialed hurriedly, and asked to speak to Stuart's mother. "Um, 'ello Missus Pot?" He held the phone away from his ear for several seconds as a string of very loud obscenities flew out at him from the other end of the line. "Yeah, okay, I deserved that, but this is _important!_ Your boy's awake – no, really this time, he's up and talking, look, I don't have time for this, we've been in a bit of a car accident – yes, _again_ – and the ambulance is on its way, I'll see you at the hospital, I'll put him on the line if you want ..." He held the phone down near Stuart's ear.

Stuart swallowed and croaked "Um. 'Ello, Mum."

Even at arm's length, Murdoc heard Mrs Pot's shriek. Stuart looked decidedly rattled at having it happen so close to his ear.

"Y-yeah, it's me ... yeah, I get it, I'll see you at the 'ospital. Love you, Mum."

_"Love you, Mum". Yecch,_ Murdoc mouthed to himself as he put the phone away. Sheesh, how old _was_ this kid, five? Still, he looked slightly happier. Still bloody and obviously in pain, but happier.

Sirens alerted him to the arrival of the ambulance, and he remembered what had gone through his head when he'd first seen Stuart was awake. Something he needed to say _now,_ before it was too late. The paramedics were already standing around him, he'd better say it now before they told him to move out of the way.

Murdoc grabbed Stuart by the shoulders and stared deeply into what was left of his eyes. "Now before you go to the hospital there's something very important I need to ask you. _Very _important! I've needed to ask you this ever since I-, er, since you ... got knocked out."

"Sure. Anything," Stuart mumbled dreamily, weakly clasping Murdoc's hand in his own and smiling.

Murdoc took a deep breath and asked the all-important question ...

"Do you still remember how to sing?"

Stuart looked confused. Murdoc wondered if he'd imagined the vague flicker of disappointment on the kid's face. "Uh. Yeah. 'Course."

Murdoc let go of him, stood up, punched the air, and danced around, whooping loudly. "Oh _yeah!_ Finally! Someone down there_ likes_ me! Look out, world, Murdoc Niccals is on the way! In yer face, Hannibal, I'm finally doin' it!"

His glee was brought to a sudden halt when he found himself face to face with a very disturbed-looking police officer. He dropped his arms back to his sides and tried to look nonchalant. "Hi. Problem, officer?"

"Is this your car?" she said, pointing to the now windscreen-less vehicle.

"Yeah ..." The damage finally registered in Murdoc's mind. If it had been anyone else in the car he'd probably have reacted to the broken windscreen first, but Stuart ... well, he wasn't sure what he thought of Stuart most of the time, but at this precise moment his confusion was covered up by rage. "MY CAR! When I get my hands on that kid I'll ... I'll ... Look what he's done to my _car!"_

"Correction, sir; look at what _you_ did to the car," the policewoman said sternly, producing handcuffs. "You're under arrest for dangerous driving."

Murdoc considered running, but that would probably make matters worse in the long run. He shrugged and held out his hands, unable to resist a smart-aleck comment. "Y'know, normally I prefer to keep the handcuffs for private use."

"Most amusing, sir. You have the right to remain silent, and off the record I would be very pleased if you did so if that kind of comment is all you have to contribute ..."

Meanwhile, as Stuart was loaded into the ambulance, he looked at the nearest paramedic and mumbled "Who _was_ that weird bloke?"

**(Author's Notes: I'm pretty sure real police aren't supposed to talk to arrestees like that, but in a world where the punishment for putting someone in a coma is to look after them while they're comatose ... 'Sides, she's probably arrested Murdoc before and is getting sick of him. Also, playing pranks on waking coma patients is very very wrong. But funny. That was kind of inspired by the webcomic Order of the Stick where someone jokingly tells a girl who's been turned back from a statue that she's been out for a thousand years, then tells her the truth about it only having been an hour.)**


	5. Chapter 5

The door of the holding cell clicked open. Murdoc looked up.

"Well, you're free to go for now, Mr Niccals. Someone's here to see you, they said they'd come to pick you up."

"Really? Who?"

The police officer moved aside to reveal ... oh, sweet Satan, it was Mr and Mrs Pot. Why would they want to see him? Why were they smiling? They never smiled in front of him! And it wasn't like he could blame them, considering what he'd done to ...

He looked at the figure in the wheelchair between them. Stuart was sitting in it, heavily bandaged but smiling. He waved at Murdoc, with a friendly cry of "Hi!"

"Er ... hi." Murdoc waved back. "What're you doing here?"

Mr Pot started to hold out his hand, looked at Murdoc's grubby clawed hands, and put his own hand back in his pocket, wrinkling his nose slightly. "Afternoon, Mr Niccals. I'm David Pot and this is me lovely wife Rachel, we've met before."

"Yesss, we have," Murdoc said, looking nervously at Mrs Pot. When Stuart wasn't looking she'd dropped the smile and clenched her fist in warning. He had no intention of provoking her – he'd walked with a limp for days after their altercation after the trial.

"And I s'pose I should introduce you properly to me boy Stuart," Mr Pot continued, ignoring him and ruffling Stuart's hair. "It was his idea to come over here an' pick you up, we thought you might need a lift since your car ... well."

"Don't remind me," Murdoc muttered, extending a hand to the kid in the wheelchair. "'Ello, Stuart."

"Aw, call me Stu-Pot. All me friends do," said the blue-haired boy, enthusiastically shaking the proffered hand. "'Ello, Mr Niccals."

_Oh great, the sense of humour runs in the family. I think I liked him better when he was out cold ... nah, he couldn't sing when he was out cold,_ Murdoc thought. Out loud, he blurted out "We're friends?" before he could stop himself.

"Sure!"

Murdoc gave Stu-Pot's parents a funny look. They shrugged. Murdoc guessed he must have been like this even before his brains got mangled in the crash. Weird boy. Still, he could work with weird.

Mr Pot resumed speaking. "Now, Mr Niccals, I'm not goin' to make a secret of the fact that me wife and I do _not_ like you, and I don't fink you can blame us. You did take good care of our boy-" Murdoc did his utmost not to laugh at this claim – evidently they hadn't spoken to his landlord about his games of Downstairs Wheelchair Ride – but Mr Pot continued, "-but if it weren't for you he wouldn't have needed lookin' after in the first place, would 'e?"

Murdoc shrugged noncommittally.

Mrs Pot took over. "Still, even if you put our boy out for a year, you did bring 'im back round."

"Well, uh ... I didn't _mean_ to," Murdoc muttered, then hastily corrected himself with "Didn't mean to knock him out, I mean!"

Stuart giggled and spoke up. "Yeah, I know. So I asked Mum an' Dad to bring me t'see ya. Thought you should know I'm doin' okay. Still can't walk right yet, but the docs say I'll be fine. Nothin's broken."

"And, um ... your eyes? Can you see okay?" Murdoc gestured at Stuart's face. "Can they fix that?" He hoped they couldn't. Might be inconvenient if Stuart couldn't see, but it looked _awesome._ 'Sides, blind singers were a fine old tradition, right back to that Ancient Greek guy whatsisname ...

Stuart's smile faded a little. "It's ... okay. Still fuzzy, but I c'n see enough to get by. They said it's prob'ly fixable, but I think I can live with it for now. Looks a bit funny, that's all."

Murdoc mentally cheered. So he wasn't going to lose the zombie image. Perfect. He couldn't blame the kid for not wanting someone messing about with it – if he'd just come out of a coma, he wouldn't be keen to be anaesthetised for surgery unless it was absolutely necessary.

"So, I got some good news for ya!" Stuart said, perking up. "I persuaded Mum an' Dad to see if we c'n get the charges against you dropped."

"Huh?"

"Well, we can't do much about the dangerous drivin' one, but we're gonna see if we can get yer community service cancelled, or at least cut down a bit. So's you don't have to look after me no longer."

Murdoc's heart tried to simultaneously leap and drop. Even if this only happened in a metaphorical sense, it was a very weird sensation. His jaw dropped and he stared at the smiling Stu-Pot.

"Um ... thanks."

The Pots didn't notice his consternation. Murdoc thought it over. On one hand, no more looking after the dent-head. No more hauling around both a metaphorical and literal deadweight, no more funny looks on the street, no more changing an incontinent and immobile nineteen-year-old's (no, Stuart would be twenty now, wouldn't he? Yeah, his parents had taken him home for his birthday a few months ago) clothes and nappies, no more getting yelled at by the landlord for the clashing and shouting as he tried to steer the fucking wheelchair around the building or gave up and shoved it down the stairs. On the other hand ... no more Stuart. Why would Stuart want to talk to him now he didn't have to be around him? Would the kid's parents let him talk to someone like Murdoc?

Murdoc shook some sense into himself. Why _wouldn't _the kid want to talk to him? He was _Murdoc Niccals,_ he'd find a way to make the kid listen to his plan.

"So, Mr Niccals," said Mr Pot, faux-cheerfully. "You needed a ride home?"

The car ride was awkwardly silent. Stuart, long legs folded up under him to fit in the small car, looked out of the window and hummed softly. Murdoc caught himself staring at the boy and hastily looked away.

"Uh, so ..." he said, breaking the tension. "Worked at the keyboard shop, didja?"

"Hm? Oh! Yeah, I did!" Stu-Pot responded, perking up. "I love keyboards. D'you play, Mr Niccals ... can I call you Murdoc?"

"Uh ... sure, whatever. And no, I don't play keyboard, but I play bass guitar. Used to have some friends who were gonna form a band with me, but ... well, things didn't work out. I still got some demo tapes if you want a listen." Huh. Someone was actually _listening_ when he talked about music. It was ... nice. He'd missed that when he'd stopped talking to the lads. Murdoc mentally shook himself and changed tack. "What about you, Mr Pot? Mrs Pot? Either of you play anything?"

"Nah, but I 'elped Stu fix up broken keyboards," said Mr Pot, glancing at Murdoc in the rearview mirror. "I'm a mechanic, I work at Tusspot's Fairground. Family business, y'know – me name used to be Tusspot, but I 'ad it shortened ... Thank you for not laughin'. Yes, that'd be _why_ I changed it."

It was taking all Murdoc's self-control not to laugh. He hurriedly changed the subject. "Okay, er, keyboards. Y'know, back when I had denthea-, I mean _Stuart_ over, I used to play music all the time, and sometimes his fingers would move. Like he was playin' the keys."

"Really?" Mrs Pot asked, looking over her shoulder at Stuart, who blinked.

"Did I really?"

"Really!" Murdoc actually was telling the truth. He'd tested a few albums to see which ones provoked the most response. He and Stuart apparently shared a love of The Clash. "Played him some of my own material to see if he'd pick it up, an' he seemed to." He grinned and moved in for the kill. "So, wanna see if you still remember those?"

"Huh?" Stuart looked at him stupidly.

Murdoc sighed and changed tack, placing a friendly hand on Stuart's shoulder. "I was thinking of seeing if I could form a band again. I heard you sing and play before ... you know, and if you're still that good, I want you involved."

Mr Pot coughed. "Er, Mr Niccals, I'm not entirely sure Stuart will want to be around you after-"

"Yeah, okay!" Stuart said, a joyful grin spreading across his face.

"What?!" Mr Pot nearly crashed the car. Mrs Pot jerked her head around and stared at Stuart.

"Look, Dad, I've been finkin' since I woke up, an' I fink life's too short to not do stuff when you got the chance. Right? I could get 'it by a car again an' die an' then wouldn't I feel silly for not bein' in a band when I could have?" Stuart folded his arms and scowled like a stubborn child.

"That's the way, Stu me boy!" said Murdoc proudly. "Seriously, I got a good feelin' about this time. If you're still as good as you were when I 'eard you, we got it made!"

"Fanks!" Stuart beamed. "D'you need a guitarist? 'Cos I know someone who might be good."

"You do? Excellent! Who is he?" _Wow, this day just gets better and better! If I didn't know better I'd swear God must like me!_

"She," Stuart corrected, and sighed happily. "Paula Cracker. Lovely girl. Great player. She usedta buy guitar strings at the shop. Y'know, I fink I was right earlier. Life's short. An' ... an' ... well, even if she don't want in with the band, I'm gonna ask 'er out."

Murdoc's mood dropped, though he couldn't for the life of him figure out why. He managed to conceal the sudden mood change, though frankly he was pretty sure Stuart wouldn't have noticed anyway. Geez, he'd forgotten how astoundingly dim the kid was. He thought the problem over, wondering why his stomach had lurched that way, and settled on the most obvious answer: Stuart was putting some girl ahead of the band? _His_ band? Okay, so there wasn't a band yet, but ... he was not going to let his singer get distracted from getting them started by some girl.

_She'd better want to join the band, and she'd _definitely_ better be as good as he says,_ Murdoc said to himself, clenching his fist. _I've watched this dream get shot down too damn many times to let some bimbo do it again._

**(Author's Notes: Ah, denial. Plus Mr and Mrs Pot. Ain't they nice? Information about their surname taken from _Rise of the Ogre_, and frankly I can't blame Mr Pot for changing it. Also, I should note that I'm told that in the UK bail isn't required to be allowed to leave the police station when you're charged with something like dangerous driving, as long as nobody's died. I live in the UK but have never been arrested, so if I'm wrong, tell me.)**


	6. Chapter 6

The phone rang. Murdoc picked it up and blearily muttered "Hello?"

"Hi, Murdoc!" came a slightly panicky high-pitched voice from the other end. "It's Stu-Pot 'ere."

"Stu-P- ... oh, it's you ... look, why are you calling me? It's ..." Murdoc glanced at the clock and exploded with rage. "It's _FOUR in the bloody MORNING!"_ Okay, so he'd only actually gone to bed an hour ago, after a celebratory drink or two (or ten), but still ...

"You said I could call you any time!"

"Why are you calling me now?"

"I can't sleep! I'm scared!" Stu-Pot babbled. "What if I go back into the coma an' I don't wake up?"

"Well, then I'll be sure to run you over again!"

"That's not funny!"

"Was it meant to be?" Murdoc snapped. "Look, denthead, I am not at my most pleasant at this time in the morning, and I really don't see why you can't go and bother yer parents over this!"

"But you said I could call you an' you don't 'ave to get up in the morning! They do, they've gotta take me back to the 'ospital ..."

Murdoc sighed and mentally chanted _Must not kill potential frontman. Must not kill potential frontman._ Not to mention technically he was still obliged to look after the kid until the charges were officially dropped, so even if the actual method of care had changed from hauling around an unconscious body to not hanging up on frightened phone calls, he still had to do it. "So you're scared. Whaddya want _me _to do about it? I am not comin' over there, your mum'll kill me."

"I dunno. Just keep talkin'? 'Till I fall asleep?"

"Urggh ... what about?"

"Uh, how 'bout this band you wanna start?"

"Okay ... well, I play bass guitar, and you'll be lead singer and keyboardist ... you can do both at the same time, right?"

"Yep!" said Stuart happily, apparently not noticing he was being insulted. "Tried it out once I got 'ome, Mum and Dad say I sound as good as ever."

"Good. And you're going to ask this Pauline bird of yours-"

"Paula."

"Whatever, you're going to ask if she wants to try out for guitarist. Meanwhile I'll be lookin' for a drummer an' some place we can practice without the neighbours complainin' too much ..."

Several minutes rambling on Murdoc's part later, he heard snores from the other end of the phone. Sighing with relief, he hung up. Sweet Satan, that kid was hard to deal with now he was talking again.

Murdoc met Stuart at the hospital every day that week to see how he was doing. Stuart's face healed up without a single scar, except for the black gaping holes where his eyes had been. Damn, that looked _good._ Put the huge black-hole eyes together with the spiky blue hair and the weirdly endearing gapped smile, and voila, instant face of the band. Sure, Murdoc was a little envious, but not much – the kid was dumb as a brick, so he could just stand up front and attract the teenage girls while Murdoc got to be the brains behind the whole outfit. And hopefully attract some of the brighter fans.

"C'mon, you need a stage name!" he said to Stuart, as the boy walked slowly around the hospital on crutches, attempting to regain his muscle strength. "All the best performers have one. Go on, what d'you think would work?"

"Uh, I dunno," Stuart said, shrugging. "Doesn't just plain Stu-Pot work?"

"Sure, if you have your dad's sense of humour." Mr Pot glared at Murdoc, who winked and grinned in an intentionally irritating manner and lit up a smoke in defiance of hospital rules. "I was thinkin' something about yer eyes. Double Dents?"

Mr Pot's glare intensified. "Please don't call my son that."

"Aw, go on! They look great! Everyone's gonna notice them ..."

Mr Pot clenched one very ominous-looking fist. "If you call my son 'Double Dents' again, I will give you a set of dents of yer very own. Got it?"

"Okay, okay ... shorten it to 2D? Nice ring to it, that."

"I think you're missin' my point here," said Mr Pot, raising his fist.

Murdoc coughed nervously. "Sheesh, I'm just kiddin' ..."

"Nah, I like it!" Stuart said unexpectedly. "2D. It's nice."

Once Murdoc left, Mr Pot had a long talk with Stuart about what a bad influence Mr Niccals was being. He failed to budge the boy's opinion, though; 2D was the name he had chosen and 2D he would remain.

Stuart, or 2D as Murdoc now called him (to his face, at least – in Murdoc's mind he was still "the kid" when Murdoc was in a good mood and "denthead" or "fucking stupid little bugger" when he wasn't) recovered from his year in the coma fairly quickly. Physically, he was still far too skinny from a year without solid food, his vision was and likely always would be fuzzy, and the migraines he'd suffered throughout his life intensified, but he was soon out of the wheelchair and walking with crutches, then a cane, until soon he was ambling around unaided as if nothing had happened. Mentally, he took it surprisingly well, adjusting to having missed a year of his life with easygoing optimism. Murdoc was of the opinion that the kid was simply too stupid to be traumatised much.

Still, Murdoc's hopes for his talent proved to be well-founded. Because the electricity needed for keyboards and amps worked sporadically at best at Murdoc's home, given the dangerously bad wiring and his habit of not paying bills, 2D pleaded with his parents for them to be allowed to practice together in the Pot's living room. They allowed Murdoc into their home on the strict understanding that 2D was watching him to make sure he touched nothing. He did manage to sneak a few nicknacks or odd coins left lying around – nothing valuable, but it was the principle of the thing.

One day, however, Murdoc arrived to find 2D with a girl. This, he presumed, was the mysterious Paula, given that she had an electric guitar and was holding 2D's hand. 2D greeted Murdoc happily.

"Hiya! Paula here says she wants in with the band! Ain't that great?"

"Sure, sure it is. Hi," said Murdoc, giving Paula an appraising glance. Dark hair, pale skin, slim. Nice, but nothing to write home about. Still, they had 2D for eye candy ... for the fans, Murdoc hastily corrected his thoughts and carefully disregarded that mental pathway. He looked closer at her face. Something about her pallor suggested substance abuse. After running with his kind of crowd, he could spot 'em fairly easily. 2D evidently couldn't. Still, as long as she could play ...

"Hi!" she said. Murdoc caught the look she was giving him; she seemed to think he hadn't noticed. Hmmm, this could be fun. "Stu-Pot 'ere tells me you're the brains behind this band?"

"Oh yeah." Murdoc grinned and winked. "So, you want in? Lemme hear you play."

Paula slung the guitar into position, strummed a few warm-up chords, and started to play. Murdoc nodded. Not too shabby. Not _great,_ but not too shabby. He could work with that.

"Nice," he said, when she was done. "D'you sing as well?"

"Nah, my voice isn't great," Paula said. "What about you?"

"Well, I used to, but my voice is ..." Murdoc gestured vaguely, "... appreciated most by a very specific audience. The public just don't know a good thing when they hear it, y'know. I needed someone with a more _conventional _voice."

"Really?" 2D asked. "Can we hear?"

Murdoc took a deep breath and burst into a horrifically off-key song.

_"Oh, the 'edgehog can never be b-"_

Mr and Mrs Pot threw him out before he'd even finished the chorus, but 2D and Paula got his point. Since the Pots told him never to come within a mile of their home again, however, the band found themselves in dire need of a new practice location.

**(Author's Notes: Trying not to portray Paula as too bad here, at least not at first, despite what she ended up doing to poor D. Though according to RotO she _is_ "on some sort of medication". The song "The Hedgehog Can Never Be Buggered At All", or just the "Hedgehog Song", is Terry Pratchett's, and there are at least four different versions floating around online if you want to look for them – I don't peg Murdoc as much of a Discworld fan, or much of a book fan in general, but I'm amused by the idea that he picked up the Hedgehog Song from somewhere.)**


	7. Chapter 7

Murdoc pondered the problem of where to find a new meeting place that night, pacing his room. He checked to see if the electricity was back on, and luckily enough, it was, so he plugged in his bass and played a few bars. Helped him think a bit, until a loud gurgling noise from the pipes drowned out the music.

Damn it! Why was it that if ever the electricity was working the boiler chose that time to stop? Some kind of cosmic seesaw of inconvenience?

Murdoc carefully put the bass down, polishing it with his sleeve as he did so, and flopped down at his new computer. Well, not exactly "new" – he'd found it in a skip. No sense paying for something you could get for free. It was slow and clunky and the screen was cracked, but it worked fine. And he'd managed to wire into someone else's phone line for the internet connection. He fired it up now, opened a search engine, and typed in "broken boiler". The landlord wasn't going to fix it, so it looked like he'd have to try it himself.

It's very easy to get distracted when using a search engine, and when his search for boiler repair tips turned up nothing useful, Murdoc figured he might as well search around for a potential practice studio while he was online.

He flicked through several pages advertising studio space. Too expensive, too small, too far away ... wait, what was that one? He scrolled back up and squinted. Yeah, that really did say what he thought it said ...

He clicked.

* * *

The phone rang. 2D picked it up and made a sleepy noise that sounded like "Mmff?"

"Hey, denthead, I got some really good news!" Murdoc said on the other end of the phone.

"Whurgh ..." 2D shook the sleep out of his eyes. "Awww, Murdoc, it's the middle of the night ..."

"Screw that, this is important!"

"But you yelled at me for-"

"Well, turnabout's fair play then, dullard! Try actually _listening_ to me, okay?" Murdoc was getting excited, until another voice on 2D's end said "Who is it?"

"Who's tha- is that Paula?!" Murdoc asked accusingly.

"Yeah ..."

"What's she doin' over th- no, I know _exactly_ what she's doin' over there, too much information for this time in the morning!" Murdoc suppressed his irritation. Nothing was going to spoil his victory.

"You wanted to know if someone else was in my room? This don't sound important ..."

"That's not why I'm callin', dullard!"

"Stop callin' me dullard ..."

"Shut up and listen! D'you have a computer?"

"What, in my bed? No."

Murdoc sighed. "Look, when you next get to a computer, check out 'Gigantic Disused Haunted Studios In The Middle Of Nowhere'-dot-com, okay?"

"Check out _whuh?"_ 2D hadn't caught a word of the excessively long URL, unsurprisingly.

"Never mind, I'll show you when I see you tomorrow, but I can tell you now that Satan willing I _think_ we have a studio base ..."

* * *

"Didn't you think the 'haunted' bit might be a problem?" Paula asked nervously, parking her dad's van at the ominous-looking gates marked "KONG". 2D gulped and shrank back in his seat.

"I didn't even know there were any mountains in Essex," he muttered, looking at the looming peak upon which perched the building Murdoc had chosen for their new base.

"Wuss." Murdoc clambered out of the van and stretched. "This place is perfect. Plenty of space and no neighbours to complai- awwgh, what is that smell? Dammit, D, I thought you got your bowel control back months ago!"

"That's not me!" 2D protested. "I think that's a landfill outside! Are you sure coming here was a good idea?"

Murdoc looked offended. "'Course it's a good idea. It's _my_ idea!"

As the three walked up the path to the front door of the dark and disturbing building, Paula and 2D clung to each other and glanced around nervously. Murdoc strode ahead, whistling. Paula and 2D only got more nervous as they realised that yes, that _was_ a large and vile-smelling landfill, and right next to it was an equally strange-smelling graveyard. Paula retched.

As they reached the front door, Murdoc breathed deeply. "Ah, smell that, kids? That is the smell of success."

"Uh, you might not want to breathe too deeply outside here," said a voice. Paula and 2D jumped, but the voice turned out to belong to a twitchy-looking man in a shabby suit. "You could catch something. Mr Niccals, is it?"

"Yeah, you wanted live-in caretakers for this place? Six months, you said on the phone?"

"Oh, y-yes," said the man, evidently the owner of the building, still twitching. "You know the procedure, keep the place clean and fix up any damage ... here are the keys."

Murdoc blinked. That was surprisingly easy. Evidently they'd been the only applicants.

"Oh, and you'll need this," the owner added, shoving another object into Murdoc's hand.

Murdoc blinked again. "Not that I'm objecting, but why would we need a handgun?"

"You'll find out!" called the owner, already pushing past 2D and Paula. He vanished through the gates, and they heard the screeching of tyres.

2D stared down the path. "I don't fink he's comin' back."

"All the better!" Murdoc grinned broadly and shoved the handgun into his belt. "Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our new rent-free HQ!"

He opened the door and swaggered into the hallway, 2D and Paula following behind very reluctantly. At least the smell of decomposing organic matter was slightly less oppressive indoors, but then the air indoors was so full of dust it was hard to smell anything.

"Eh, smells better'n my place," Murdoc said with a shrug.

"I-I-I can hear someone coming!" Paula choked out between coughs. "Can't you 'ear that creaking noise?"

"Huh? That? Nah, that's just the building settlin' or something ..."

Murdoc turned the corner, only to be confronted by a decomposing corpse. It groaned and shuffled towards him, arms outstretched. Paula and 2D shrieked like children and clung to each other. Murdoc hastily drew the handgun and pumped three bullets into the zombie's head, which burst into a flaky mess like an exploding paper bag. The rest of the zombie took another step forward and collapsed.

The group stared at the corpse.

"Okay, now I see why they wanted rid of this place," Murdoc said.

"Can we go home now?" begged 2D, voice muffled by the fact that his face was buried in Paula's bosom. Since he was taller than she was, this required his legs to be bent at a very awkward angle, and he promptly collapsed to his knees, dragging her down into a heap with him. "Ooff! Sorry, Paula. But really, we can't _stay _here, right?"

"Aw, don't be such a sissy, Two Dents. All we need to do is find another few handguns ..."

* * *

Murdoc moved into the new studio straight away, leaving behind the words "FUCK YOUR LEASE" carved into the door of his old bedsit. 2D and Paula reluctantly showed up every day to help clear the place up a bit; fixing broken fittings, cleaning out some of the dust and spiderwebs, and shooting down any zombies that got into the building. Bit by bit, they started to make a nightmarish building into a livable one, though there was nothing they could do about the landfill smell. They got used to that. And they had to admit, the room they used for their practice studio was perfect.

One night, when 2D and Paula had finally decided it was safe to actually sleep in the building after much zombie-proofing, Murdoc was woken by a thumping noise from the next room. He reflexively reached for his gun, before the thump came again and he realised it was 2D's headboard banging against the wall. _Oh. Right. That._

He rolled over and tried to get back to sleep, but the thumping came again. And again. Murdoc growled and pressed his hands over his ears, irritation flaring. Not fair, denthead was gettin' some and he wasn't. And they were keeping him awake while they were at it! If it wasn't for the sake of the band he'd go in there and beat the dullard back into his coma! At least then he was _quiet!_ Wouldn't have been so bad, but the wall was just thick enough that he couldn't actually hear anything interesting. He listened harder. Nope, nothing. Rats. Not that he actually _wanted_ to hear 2D going at it. Was kind of weird to think of that, he'd been convinced the kid was too dim to know which end to work with. Presumably Paula was showing him ... Murdoc felt an unaccountable twinge of envy at that thought. Must be because Paula had clearly been eyeing him up since they met and denthead still got her first ...

_You almost got _him_ first,_ that irritating little voice in the back of his head whispered.

_Fuck you!_ he thought back. _Didn't we already establish I was drunk and bored that time? Doesn't mean a damn thing! Except maybe that he looks fucking girly. And it's not like I actually hurt him ... not that I'd have cared or anything, I just stopped 'cos ... well, 'cos ... Screw him, he's welcome to her. I'll yell at 'em in the morning. So _you _can go bother someone else ..._

He gave up trying to sleep and got out of bed. Since he was awake, he might as well do something useful. He fired up the search engine again and started browsing. They had a studio, but they were still short a drummer. He checked through a few ads, discarding them all until he found a promising one; "Russel Hobbs". He clicked and skimmed. Some fellow over from Brooklyn, USA, looking to get into the music scene in London. Hmm, sounded good, better go searching for this bloke's name and see if anyone he'd played for before had anything to say about him ...

Maybe it was because he still had zombies on the brain (he winced at the inadvertent pun) but the word "paranormal" caught his eye. It was a recent news article on some American newspaper's website; apparently this Russel fellow had narrowly escaped during a drive-by shooting ...

Murdoc's eyes gleamed as he read the article. _Perfect._

**(Author's Notes: I realised after writing this and the last chapter that RotO says Paula joined after the boys got hold of Kong, but oh well, it doesn't really make all that much difference to the overall story. Plus this way is funny. I feel Murdoc's pain in the last bit – noisy roomies REALLY suck. In case anyone here doesn't know, the Gorillaz creators actually did make "gigantic disused haunted studios in the middle of nowhere"-dot-com, so go look for it – all one word, no dashes, no quotation marks, and "dot" replaced by an actual dot, because ffnet tends to delete URLs when you type them properly.)**


	8. Chapter 8

"I'm pretty sure this is illegal."

"Well, duh."

"Paula's gonna kill us both, you know."

"Paula's got the band's best interests at heart, just like we do."

"Yeah, but ..."

"No buts, Two Dents. Look, if we get caught, say I made you do it. I'm pretty sure I can wrangle me way out, and you'll get off scot-free." Murdoc parked the van, which had been "borrowed" from Paula's dad and had the license plates hidden back at Kong, and stepped onto the pavement, glancing around cautiously.

"Aww, fanks! That's really nice ... in a really scary way."

"Don't get used to it. It's for the good of the band. Can't do much if my frontman's in jail. Got the stuff?"

2D nodded, patting the side of his coat. It's easy to hide things under a long voluminous coat, particularly when the coat is made for someone over six feet tall; things like a folded-up wheelchair that Murdoc had neglected to return to the hospital, hoping it would come in handy. Well, you never knew. Murdoc checked his own coat for the black sack, and looked around to make sure the coast was clear. Yep, they'd picked the right time of day – Big Rick Black's Record Shack was empty and not many people were on the street.

"Okay, you know the plan?" 2D nodded. "Good. Let's go!"

Murdoc nonchalantly strolled towards the record shop. 2D followed behind, pressing himself spread-eagled against the wall and ostentatiously looking around, humming "Mission Impossible". Murdoc whirled around and hissed at him in frustration.

"For cryin' out loud, dullard, are you tryin' to draw attention to us? D'you want me to get you a big flashing sign sayin' 'look at me, I'm bein' inconspicuous'?!"

"Well, if you think it'd help-"

Murdoc cuffed 2D round the ear. Not enough to actually hurt, they were in public, but enough to get the message across. "Just do as I do until I give the signal, and keep your mouth shut. Okay?"

2D nodded and followed Murdoc into the shop.

Their target was standing behind the counter, flicking idly through a music magazine. A young black man with a shaven head, a few years older than 2D, shorter than Murdoc, and heavier than both of them put together. He would have had quite a pleasant face if not for the eerily blank white eyes. He blinked at the odd pair entering the store.

"Can I help you?" he asked in a soft New York drawl, smiling in the manner of someone who is required to smile by company policy but is actually feeling really, _really_ uncomfortable. Murdoc couldn't blame him; he and 2D made a decidedly worrying sight, and the dullard was looking very twitchy. _Never bring along an amateur on a job again,_ Murdoc told himself.

"Uh, yeah, hi ..." Murdoc made a show of glancing at the nametag, though he knew exactly who the guy was. "Russel. I'm lookin' for a record."

"Well, then you've come to the right place. Any record in particular?" Russel looked over Murdoc's shoulder at 2D. "Are you okay?"

"Oh yeah, I'm fine, and I'm doin' absolutely nothin' suspicious at all!" 2D babbled. Russel blinked.

"Um, he, er ... forgot his medication this morning," Murdoc hastily explained. "Don't worry, I'll make sure he doesn't shoplift anythin'."

Russel didn't look convinced, but he listened as Murdoc listed a few fairly obscure albums. 2D, remembering his part in the plan, made his way closer to the counter and pretended to be looking at the leaflets for local clubs.

"I think some of those records might be in the back room, lemme check," Russel said, and turned around ...

Murdoc yelled "NOW!"

As he yelled, he leaned over the counter and quickly pulled the sack over Russel's head and shoulders. Russel struggled for a second, then started to go limp; the inside of the bag was soaked in ether. 2D, meanwhile, vaulted the counter, rapidly unfolded the wheelchair, and shoved it at Russel's back. It caught him under the knees, causing him to collapse into it. Murdoc lifted the side of the counter, allowing 2D to shove the wheelchair out, then ran to get the van doors. 2D shoved Russel out of the shop, tipped him into the back of the van, slammed the doors, and leapt into the front seat just as Murdoc hit the accelerator and headed for the motorway.

"Whoo! Betcha didn't think that wheelchair would come in handy again, eh, denthead?" Murdoc said, exhilarated, and punched 2D in the arm in a friendly manner. "Knew it was a good idea to keep it."

"I fink I pulled a muscle in me arm," 2D complained. "Gaw, 'e's heavy!"

"Oh, stop whinin'."

Back at Kong, they somehow managed between them to haul their unconscious victim inside, get him into the studio, and tie him to a chair without waking him.

"I'm still not sure about this," 2D said as Murdoc yanked the bag off Russel's head and hid it under the sink.

"Yeah, well, I am, and I'm the brain behind this band, kid. So quitcher bitchin'."

At this moment, Paula entered the room, cigarette clamped in her teeth and empty coffee mug in her hand. "Oh, hey, Stu-Pot, sweetie, I was just goin' to make some more coff-eh?" She stopped, staring at the unconscious man tied to the chair. "What the hell is going on?"

"Um," 2D said unhelpfully.

"Paula, darlin'! Meet the new drummer!" Murdoc said loudly, hoping to surprise her into not arguing.

"Oh. Cool," Paula said. "Well, did you want coffee?"

If it hadn't got him out of a huge amount of trouble, Murdoc would have been slightly worried by her lack of reaction. Maybe she'd got into 2D's pills again. Or something less legal. Or possibly she was neglecting to take pills she was _supposed _to be taking, he wasn't entirely sure.

Much to the band's surprise, a smoky blue thing chose this moment to materialise above Russel's head. It quickly coalesced into a figure with glowing white eyes, a yellow baseball cap, and a confused look. "Yo, what's goin' on?"

Murdoc was slightly pleased by the fact that 2D chose to cling to his neck rather than Paula's. _Oh yeah, denthead, you know whose bitch you _really_ are._ The fun, however, was somewhat spoiled by 2D's piercing shriek of "EEEEK! A GHOST!" happening directly next to his ear.

The ghost took one look at 2D's eyes and yelped "Gah! Zombie!"

"EEK! ZOMBIES? WHERE?!" 2D yanked the gun from his belt and shot wildly around the room. Paula sensibly dived under the table, knocking several notebooks full of scribbled song ideas to the floor. Three bullets left holes in the wall, one of them passing harmlessly through the startled ghost on its way.

"Oh yeah, I should probably have mentioned this thing earlier," Murdoc said. "Sorry about that. Denthead, could you let go of my neck? And remind me _never_ to let you have a gun again."

"Who're you callin' 'thing', green boy?" the ghost objected. "The name's Del, an' Russel's my bro. You hasslin' him?"

"'Scuse me – _Del,_ then," Murdoc interrupted. "See, Paula, 2D, this is why I wanted Mr Hobbs here. According to the rumours, Mr Hobbs is possessed by several ghosts, but not just any ghosts, nope – these are the ghosts of some of New York's most promising but sadly deceased young musicians. A whole band for the price of one drummer, see?"

2D timidly waved. "Hi, Mr Del. Sorry about the gun. Paula, you can come out now."

"No thanks, I think I'm stayin' put for now," came a voice from under the table. Paula wasn't yet spaced-out enough for her survival instincts to have disappeared.

"So what's goin' on?" Del asked again, looking down at Russel and realising he was tied up. "Hey! Whatchoo think yo' doin'?"

Murdoc stepped forward and started slapping Russel's face. "Not much, dead boy, we just need to talk to your pal here, if he'll be so good as to wake up."

"Hey, leave him alo-_whoa!"_ As Russel's eyelids flickered, so did the ghost. Russel groaned and woke up, and Del vanished completely.

2D sighed with relief. "That was weird."

Russel, meanwhile, had woken up only to find himself tied to a chair, with Murdoc staring into his face. He yelled and nearly tipped the chair over backwards.

"Whoa, hey, relax, fat boy," Murdoc growled. "Nobody's gonna get hurt here. We just wanted to talk."

"You _kidnapped_ me?!" Russel spluttered.

"Let's say we wanted to make sure you'd listen." Murdoc grinned and lit up a cigarette. "Want a smoke?"

"Uh ... no thanks." Russel glanced around, trying to figure out where he was. A music studio didn't seem like a likely place for a dangerous hostage situation, but ...

"So, Mr Hobbs. My name's Murdoc Niccals, this here is Stuart Pot but he goes by 2D, or Two Dents if you prefer. And the young lady under the table is Paula Cracker."

"Hi ... Look, who _are_ you guys?"

Murdoc put one hand on each of Russel's shoulders, the cigarette end dangerously close to Russel's face. "We, Mr Hobbs – may I call you Russel? – are on the way to becoming the greatest chart-topping rock band the world has ever seen, and for this, we need your expert assistance. You play drums, right? Well, we found ourselves short one drummer, and you seemed to fit the bill."

Russel looked completely gobsmacked. "Lemme get this straight. You kidnapped me ... because you want me ... to join your band? Why couldn't you just _ask?"_

"'Cos you might have said no," Murdoc said, grinning smugly. "We wanted you specifically, because I only want the best for my band, and if the rumours are true then you, my friend, are the best I could find. Several of the best I could find, in fact, if your little ghostly friends want in as well."

Russel laughed, despite himself. "Well ... thanks?" He twisted around in his seat and looked at Paula. "Why is she under the table, anyway?"

"Two Dents had a bit of a panic when he heard the word 'zombie', and he happened to be holding a gun at the time. I wasn't lyin' when I said he needed medication. Y'know how it is." Murdoc shrugged. "So, Mr Hobbs, welcome to the next big music sensation!"

"Hey, I didn't agree to-" Russel began to say.

"Sure you did! With you along, we're gonna make it big – no offence," Murdoc added, smirking and poking Russel's sizable gut. Russel scowled. "Still not convinced? Paula, come on out so we can show Mr Hobbs the next point in my argument."

"Eh?" Paula said, finally peeking out from under the table.

Murdoc struck a dramatic pose. "Get yer guitar, darlin'."

The band hurriedly set up, Russel watching them in bewilderment.

"Now this here's a little piece I think you'll appreciate," Murdoc said, picking up his bass. "We call it 'Ghost Train', haharr ..."

Russel had up to this point been going along with the situation for his own safety, but when they started to play, Murdoc saw his expression change. He actually looked interested now. As the song progressed, he started nodding along to the beat and looking thoughtful.

Murdoc took a bow as the song finished, grinned at his captive, and said "Good, yeah?"

"Yeah, it's good, and it'll be better once you got a drummer, but if you maybe adjust just a couple bits it'll be _great,"_ Russel said. "Don't get me wrong, you got a great start, all you have to do is-" He caught himself and stopped.

"Yeerrrss?" Murdoc drawled, smirking. He'd won.

Russel sighed. "Okay, looks like I'm in – sorry, _we're_ in, Del wants to put his two cents in too. Can you untie me now, please?"

"Two Dents, untie our new recruit, if you would," said Murdoc, his grin widening. "So, Russel – we'll head back to London for your stuff tomorrow, go pick whichever room you want to stay in but steer clear of mine, oh, and you'll need a gun 'cos, er, denthead's little zombie panic earlier was ... well-founded."

Russel, unlooping the ropes from his arms with 2D's help, looked up sharply. "Wait, what was that about zombies-"

"Don't worry, it's perfectly safe here. Just keep a gun handy, don't breathe in the air over the landfill unless you want mad cow disease, and don't go in the basement. Seriously, just ... just don't."

Russel was starting to look very, very worried.

Murdoc hurriedly changed the subject. "Oh, one last question; can you cook? None of us can make anythin' more difficult than coffee."

"Uh, yeah, I can cook, but what's that got to do with-"

"See, I _knew_ there was a reason I hired you! I'm a genius."

"But-but-but ..." Russel attempted to form a coherent sentence and failed miserably as Murdoc placed a hand on his back and half-led half-shoved him towards the kitchen.

2D scurried to keep up. "Aw, don't feel too bad, Mr Hobbs. You should 'ear how he got me into the band."

"Kidnapped you as well, did he?" asked Russel.

"Nah, 'e ran me over. Twice."

Russel laughed. "Hahaha, that's a good one ... 'ran you over', hahaha ..." He saw 2D's expression. "... you're not kiddin', are you?"

"No!"

"Huh," Russel said, mostly to himself. "I can't decide whether I want to stick around to hear the rest of that story, or run very far away."

**(Author's Notes: Hehehe. The fandom needs a LOT more Russel, he's fun. The original draft had him and Del talking together with the others, but I wasn't sure whether Del can appear unless Russel's asleep or in a trance, since he disappeared when Russel woke up in "Jump the Gut". Eh, either way's funny.)**


	9. Chapter 9

Russel settled into the routine at Kong Studios fairly quickly, despite his misgivings. The first night at the studio, he changed his mind and attempted to flee, but one encounter with the resident zombies was enough to send him running back indoors and deciding to at least wait until daylight before trying to escape again. Once they'd fetched his belongings from back in London, and Russel had given Murdoc a brief talking-to upon catching him trying to sell some of said belongings online, he set up his drums in the studio and joined in with practice. His music was everything Murdoc had been hoping for, and when Murdoc listened to the band play together he decided their sound was now complete. Excellent.

The band still needed to decide on a name, though. They'd been tossing a few around, but none seemed to have stuck. For some reason most of the band objected to Murdoc's idea of referring to themselves as "Murdoc Niccals and backup", though he couldn't imagine why.

They hit upon the answer one day when all four of the band were watching TV together, some boring show which none of them were really paying attention to. Murdoc, without asking the rest of the band, picked up the remote with the hand not holding an open beer can, and started channel-hopping. Nature documentary, news, kid's cartoons ...

"Errgh," he said, wrinkling his nose at the music documentary now on the TV. "Not a decent player among 'em ... Wanna watch it so we can gloat about how much better our music is?"

There being nothing else worth watching, the others shrugged and continued staring blankly at the TV. Murdoc enjoyed himself bitching about how bad every song, band, and music-themed TV show mentioned was, and went through several beers, getting progressively drunker as the show went on.

"Oh gaw, look at that – ever seen such an obvious Beatles ripoff?" he said, pointing at the TV and wiping beer foam off his mouth.

"Hey, the Monkees weren't _that_ bad," Russel objected.

"Yeah, well," Murdoc slurred, shrugging. "Whatever, we're gonna be bigger than the Monkees."

"What, like ... really big monkeys?" 2D, being somewhat out of it from his pills and not having been listening much, missed the point entirely. "Like, chimps? Baboons? Orangutans? Gorillas?"

"Aw, shut up, d-" Murdoc blinked. He, Paula, and Russel looked at each other.

2D was rather puzzled when Paula kissed him, Russel thumped him gently on the back, and Murdoc threw a friendly arm around his shoulders and ruffled his hair, but he didn't object, and once they'd explained the idea to him, the band finally settled on becoming "Gorilla".

* * *

Murdoc was getting thoroughly sick of Paula. She was okay with the guitar, but only "okay" wasn't good enough for him. No way. He needed the best. He could have put up with one weak link in the band, but she was bringing 2D down with her – she distracted him during practice, and she kept him up all night when they had rehearsal the next day. _And she's making him stop paying attention to _me._ Sheesh, I only saved his bloody life and got him into the next big music sensation, what'd she do that I didn't? ... er, best not go there. Yeesh._ Besides, she was starting to spend more time stoned on something or other than Murdoc did, and whatever it was she wasn't sharing.

Murdoc was, once again, watching TV, this time smoking instead of drinking. 2D and Russel were working on a new song in the studio, so he was alone to think ... or so he thought until the object of his musings showed up.

"Hey, is this seat taken?" she said, patting the sofa cushion beside him.

"Yes," he said with a scowl, sprawling out further. She shrugged and sat on the floor, chewing on a cigarette and staring blankly in the direction of the TV.

She had to go. But how? If he just kicked her out, 2D and Russel would object. 2D especially, he inexplicably thought her music was wonderful. No, if Murdoc wanted her gone, first he had to ensure that she and 2D broke up. That way there'd be nothing tying her to the band, and she wouldn't be able to carry on sapping the singer's talent.

_Hmm,_ Murdoc thought to himself. _This will require a cunning plan. Yes, I must use all my resources to craft a careful plot to force them apart. If I play my cards right, I can get her to quit of her own accord and neither of them will ever guess I had anything to do with it ..._

Paula looked up at him. "So, Stu-Pot's not around and I'm bored. Wanna go do it?"

Murdoc actually dropped his cigarette in shock at the sheer cosmic convenience.

_... Or I guess that would work,_ he thought, patting out the lit cigarette before it could set fire to his jeans. _More fun, too._ "Sure, why not?"

* * *

The plan did not work out quite as well as he had hoped. Okay, it was fun until they got caught. Okay, so the plan had sort of required them to get caught – wouldn' t work if 2D never found out about it. The problem was that Murdoc had been hoping it would be denthead himself who caught them in the act. All the more impact that way. As it turned out, it had been Russel, and Murdoc had been the one who suffered the "impact" when Russel's fist connected with his nose. He hadn't even been aware until that moment that it was possible to break someone's nose in five places with one punch._ Two_ places at once, yeah, his brother had demonstrated that when he was a kid and that had been painful enough, but five was impressive. Then 2D came running to see what the noise was about, and there was a lot of screaming and arguing which Murdoc barely registered because he was trying to stop himself bleeding to death through his nose, and long story short he got his wish. Paula was packed and ready to leave within the hour and out of the building as soon as the zombies went back to the ground in the morning.

Murdoc hid in his room and did his best to re-set his nose himself in front of the mirror. Years of beatings at his brother's hands had taught him some basic first-aid skills.

Around noon, Russel knocked on the door.

"Go away!" Murdoc snapped. Russel ignored him and opened the door. Murdoc cursed the broken lock.

"Hey, Muds. Your nose any better yet?"

"Slightly. No thanks to you." Murdoc scowled.

Russel continued to ignore him. "Well, you know what you have to do now."

"Advertise for a new guitarist?"

Russel frowned. "Apologise to D."

"Can I do that after I've found a new guitarist? I think that's more important for the band-"

Russel grabbed Murdoc by the collar and pulled him down till their eyes met. "Let me rephrase. You are _goin' _to apologise to D, and you are goin' to do it _now,_ or I will strangle you with your own tongue."

_Great. Why did I hire him, again?_ "Fine!"

They found 2D huddled on his bed, hugging a pillow. He looked up at them as they entered, tears streaming from his eyes, looking so pitiful that anyone who wasn't Murdoc Niccals would have instantly wanted to hug him and make him feel better. Russel sat down on the bed next to 2D and patted his back, and glared at Murdoc until he slumped down in the chair.

"Hey, Two De- Stuart," Murdoc corrected himself, figuring that this was a first-name-basis conversation. "So, you, uh, saw what happened last night?" 2D nodded. "And, um, I'm assumin' you didn't buy Paula's excuse about me helping her find the contact lens she dropped down her front?" 2D shook his head and sniffled. Murdoc cursed mentally. _Looks like he really isn't as stupid as he looks._ "Would it make you feel better if I told you I swiped her purse?"

"No. Why, did you?"

"... No," Murdoc said, shoving Paula's purse back into his pocket. He sighed. "C'mon, D, it was going to fall apart eventually anyway. And I'm pretty sure she was stealing your pills."

"Hey, yeah, I thought they were goin' faster than they should ... but that's not the point!" 2D blurted. "That was still a rotten thing you did!"

"Me? Takes two to tango, kid, and she's the one who was cheatin' on someone!" Murdoc said indignantly.

"You still could have said no! You _knew_ I love 'er!" 2D hugged the pillow more tightly and sobbed. Russel pulled him into a rough hug and patted his back. Murdoc felt a sudden urge to join him, or push the drummer away and take over hugging 2D himself. He guessed it would be a bad idea, though; he'd never live it down. He didn't do hugs, and he most definitely didn't do hugs as comfort for a weepy boy-man who was quite definitely overreacting to a breakup with some tart who would have dumped him eventually anyway. But Russel would kill him if he didn't say or do something to help, so he said the first thing that came to mind.

"Well, y'know, she's an open-minded girl, so if you're willing to share-" Murdoc stopped talking as Russel stood up, eyes glowing ominously.

About forty-five seconds later, Russel dropped Murdoc, and 2D looked down at the semi-conscious body. "Huh. Guess you really _can_ strangle a bloke with his own tongue ... Hey, I do feel better!"

Russel grinned. "Good. Now I'm gonna go bleach my hands. I know all too well where that tongue's been."

Murdoc untangled himself and coughed, trying to get his windpipe back into shape. _Well,_ he thought to himself, _it was worth a try ..._

**[Author's Note: That's not a typo, according to sources I've seen they were "Gorilla" in the singular until after Noodle showed up, when they added the Z. No offence meant to any Monkees fans by Murdoc's comments in this chapter – well, not by me, anyway. Also, I'm firmly of the opinion that Murdoc intentionally drives 2D's girlfriends away because he's jealous. Well, that and he's a jerk.]**


	10. Chapter 10

"Yeah, 'global phenomenon seek guitarist for World Domination, blah blah blah, GSOH required, no hippies etc'. So, yeah, if you can put that in ASAP it'd be great ..." There was a knock at the door. "Whoop, gotta go. Ciao." Murdoc hung up the phone and hurried into the hallway. 2D and Russel followed him.

Murdoc opened the door, only to find a ten-foot tall wooden shipping crate labelled "FedEx". He looked around for the deliveryman with the clipboard – didn't all packages like this need to be signed for? – but saw nobody. How could someone have hauled a crate this size up to the doorway and vanished completely from sight that fast?

"Hm, looks like we have an unexpected free gift," he said with a grin. "Help me bring it in, fellers?"

"Helping" actually consisted of 2D and Russel hauling it indoors between them, Murdoc sauntering along behind. They set the box down in the hall.

"Did you order this?" Russel asked Murdoc. "If you did, what the hell is it?"

"I don't know, I don't remember ordering anything like this," said Murdoc with a shrug.

Russel snorted. "Going by how much you drink, that's not sayin' much."

"Whatever. Any idea what's in it?"

2D squinted at the kanji on the side of the box. "Looks like the label's in ... I dunno, something foreign."

"Okay, anyone know where we can find a crowbar?"

2D managed to hunt down a crowbar from somewhere in the scattering of junk that filled the building. He stood on a chair so he could reach, jammed the crowbar under the lid, and pulled downwards as hard as he could, as Russel steadied the box.

There was a tapping noise from inside the crate.

"Eek! It's alive!" 2D yelped, letting go of the crowbar and nearly falling off the chair.

"You sure?" Murdoc asked. "Might just be that you two knocked over somethin' inside it."

"No, I think he's right!" Russel said. "Somethin's definitely movin' in there!"

"Ah, you and yer overactive imaginations," Murdoc said dismissively, but he reached for his handgun, just in case.

Suddenly, the lid came free, and a blur burst out of the box with a yell of "KONICHIWA!"

The men blinked at the small child standing before them. She was smiling broadly and clutching a guitar in one hand – a Gibson Les Paul, to be exact – and a portable amplifier in the other. Russel looked at Murdoc.

"So, uh, this yours?"

"What? No!"

"You sure?"

"Look, the sprog's what, eight? Nine? If it was mine its mother would probably have told me about it and tried to get money out of me before now, not waited most of a decade and posted the brat to me."

The child blinked and gabbled a string of incomprehensible noise which was probably some kind of greeting.

2D jumped off the chair and cooed "Awww, she's so cute!"

"Don't get attached, dullard, we're not keepin' it!" Murdoc put down his gun and reached for the child. "Back in the box you go, you little horror. Someone check for a return address on this thing ..."

The child leapt nimbly out of the way, put down the amp, raised her hand, and slammed it down on the guitar strings.

Right from the first chord, she completely captivated them. All three men stared, Murdoc forgetting his efforts to catch the little girl. She strummed away, jumping around wildly as she did, fingers a blur on the strings, never missing a note in the complicated rhythm. Murdoc felt his heartbeat racing and a smile spreading over his face. Damn, she was _good._ Going by the expressions on Russel's and 2D's faces, they thought so too. Good music plus an adorably marketable little face equalled ...

_Thank you, Satan, we have our guitarist._

Finally, she leapt in the air with one last thrumming chord, flipped in the air, landed neatly on her feet, bowed, and shouted "NOODARU!"

The band continued to stare.

Russel broke the silence. "You _sure _she's not yours?"

"Yes, but now I'm startin' to wish she was."

"Still wanna send her back?"

"Hell no."

2D tilted his head and frowned. "What'd she say?"

_"Noodaru!"_ the child repeated, insistently.

"Sounds like 'noodle'. Think she's hungry?"

"Sounds like a job for you, then, Hobbs." Murdoc picked up the child and handed it to Russel. "Meanwhile I'll go see if I can find a few loopholes in the child labour restrictions. Pretty sure it doesn't count as work if she's having as much fun as she seemed to be, so maybe if we don't pay her ..." He caught Russel's glare and said "Aw, come on, what's a kid that young gonna do with money anyway?" Russel continued to glare until Murdoc sagged and muttered "Fine, fine, I'll go check how we're _supposed_ to do it. Spoilsport."

"You do that. I'm gonna feed the kid, then talk to the police. I'm pretty sure it's not legal to send children by FedEx, and her parents must be wondering where she is."

"NO! No, you can't send her away! We _need_ her!" Murdoc protested. The little girl blinked at him, seeing that he was upset even if she didn't understand why, and reached out a hand to pat his arm comfortingly. He pushed it away irritably.

"How are we supposed to look after her?" Russel pointed out. "What, you think folks are gonna look at us and say 'Hey, here's a well-known criminal, a painkiller addict, and a guy who hasn't got his UK citizenship yet and has ghosts livin' in his head, wantin' to keep a little girl who doesn't speak any English, in a building next to a zombie-infested graveyard. Sure, there's nothin' remotely weird or dangerous about that at all!'?"

"I spent more than a year lookin' after Two Dents and didn't kill him, surely that's gotta count for something!"

"He did!" 2D agreed. "And if I can live here and not get hurt, it can't be that dangerous!"

"But what about the kid's parents?" Russel argued.

The girl seemed to realise they were arguing about her. She looked up and sniffled, whimpering something and cuddling up to Russel. The words were just as incomprehensible as everything else she'd said, but the tone was heartbreaking.

"Oh, no, no, don't cry!" 2D bent down and took the girl's hand. "Awww, it's okay! Russel's just bein' a big meany! You can stay if you want!"

Murdoc sighed. "Okay, how's this? This Noodley-girl 'ere stays with us for now. We see if we can find out what the label on that box says, that should give us some idea where she's from. Looks Chinese or some such. Once we've found out where she's from, we talk to her parents and ask if she can join the band. Just don't go to the police, okay, Russel? Please? What they don't know won't hurt them, but gettin' arrested for kidnapping will definitely hurt _us."_

Russel sighed. "Okay, I guess keepin' her here for long enough to find her parents won't do any harm." He smiled down at the girl. "Don't cry, li'l gal. You can stay." The child caught the tone if not the words, beamed, and hugged Russel harder. The drummer hugged her back, and said "Okay, I could get used to her."

"So, uh, why'd someone send us a little kid anyway?" 2D patted the child's head awkwardly. He and Russel looked at each other, and then slowly turned to look accusingly at Murdoc.

"Hey, why're you givin' me that look? What? Oh, so somethin' weird's happenin' so it's got to be my fault?"

"Well ... yeah?" 2D pointed out. "Every time somethin' weird happens around here it's usually got _somethin' _to do with you."

Russel shook his head. "I know this is you I'm talkin' to, Muds, but there's somethin' really unhealthy about gettin' a preteen by mail. Okay, mail-order brides are one thing, but ... you didn't get her for that, did you? 'Cos if you did I think I'd have to kill you-"

"Hey!" Murdoc snapped. "I got my limits, okay, fatarse? I don't do little kids or coma patients, and for the record that thing with the cat was taken _entirely_ out of context!"

2D blinked. "Hey, why'd you 'ave to specify-"

"Whoa, look at the time! Gotta go check the phone, my brother said he'd be callin' me about now ..." Murdoc grinned fixedly and tried to walk away, foiled in the attempt to avoid the awkward conversation as 2D followed him.

"Didn't you say you hate your brother? Why would he phone you? Does he even know your number?"

"Did I say brother? I, er, meant my sister."

"You haven't _got_ a sister!"

"Sure I have. I've prob'ly got dozens, I've just never really met any of 'em ..."

"No, really, what was that about coma patients-"

"Don't you have work to do, Tosspot?"

**(Author's Notes: Well, the "would Murdoc rape an unconscious guy?" thing is up for debate, and I reckon he probably IS enough of a bastard to at least consider it ('specially since he did apparently steal several of 2D's internal organs), but I'm pretty sure he wouldn't do anything to Noodle, or at least _didn't_ do anything to Noodle, going by the fact that Russel hasn't yet canonically removed any of Murdoc's appendages. Not to mention the official Anton LaVey Church of Satan actually has a commandment against harming children. Trufax. Murdoc's version of Satanism is a bit more cartoonish and piecemeal, but he did cite LaVey as one of his influences. The "thing with the cat", though ... yeah, he'd probably do something like that, whatever it was. Hehe. I think Noodle's accent - hence "Noodaru" - is exaggerated beyond that of a real Japanese person here, but it's just as exaggerated in canon so that's okay. And has it occurred to anyone else how much the legal system in the Gorillaz universe must really, REALLY suck to let them get away with what they do?)**


	11. Chapter 11

Murdoc was on the phone yet again. They had the band, they had the new name "Gorillaz", they had the music. Now they needed a venue for their first concert, so he'd made a list of every pub in a fifty-mile radius. Then he'd had to go through the list again and scratched off the ones he hadn't been banned from. This left him with very few options, but he wasn't bothered; they only needed one. This call seemed to be going well so far.

"Great! Uh, one thing, is it okay to bring a minor in? She won't be drinking anything.

Good ... What? No, she's not my daughter!

No, she's not one of theirs either, she just lives with us ...

Dunno exactly, but we think she's about eight. Is that important?

She's our guitarist, we have to bring her!

She can play, we needed a guitarist, we don't know where she came from and she couldn't tell us. So we thought we'd better keep her around ...

Listen, you, our Noodle's the best. Okay? She plays like Jimi Hendrix and she's bloody adorable to boot. The audiences are gonna love her. I reckon I could market cuddly toy versions of her ...

I don't know, I placed an advert and she came in a FedEx crate ...

She didn't tell us, she can't speak English. I think she's from Japan or somewhere, but I don't know the specifics ...

What? No, she's _not_ a mail-order bride!

Excuse me, my drummer is laughin' at me, I have to go slap him.

Okay, yeah, I know it sounds weird, but it's not like we _asked_ for the kid! I'll tell you what I told Russel, all I advertised for was a guitarist! And _don't laugh!_ She might be a kid, but she's the best damn guitarist I've ever heard, and if you don't like it you can-!"

Murdoc put down the phone and sulkily said "They hung up."

Russel choked back his sniggers. "Maybe you should tell 'em she is yours."

"Why can't I tell them she's yours or denthead's?"

"Because nobody's gonna buy that either of us was a father at the age of twelve."

"Are you sayin' I'm old?"

Russel ignored the bassist's rage. "Fine, tell 'em she's your niece. Or a cousin, or a sister, or somethin'. Or say she's adopted, it's not like you're gonna have to produce the paperwork. 'I found her in a box' only works with puppies."

"They're hardly goin' to believe she's adopted either, are they? Like you said, three single blokes with not-so-great reputations-"

"Speak for yourself," interrupted Russel. Murdoc ignored him.

"-livin' in a haunted house aren't really prime candidates for looking after kids, even by the standards of a system which handed Two Dents over to me."

2D looked up from his keyboard. "Well, we can't do anyfink about the haunted house thing but you could always wear a dress-"

This was a bad move on 2D's part. Murdoc was frustrated with his trouble finding a venue, annoyed by Russel, and generally on edge. 2D's pitiful attempt at a joke pushed him over. Before he really realised what he was doing, Murdoc's fist had connected with 2D's eye. The singer was caught off-balance and collapsed backwards with a yelp. Russel jumped to his feet and rushed to 2D's side to help him up.

"I'm okay!" 2D squeaked. "I landed on me 'ead, no damage to anythin' important!" He sat up, giggling despite the fact that his eye was swelling up as he spoke. Russel glared at Murdoc, who ignored him; he was too busy looking at 2D. Something about the way the kid's hair flopped over his bruised eye was pitifully endearing. Murdoc noticed an odd warm feeling in his stomach, and the knuckles of the hand which had hit 2D felt strangely tingly. Huh, what could that be? ... oh shit, it _couldn't _be.

This time, he had no excuse. He wasn't drunk. He wasn't in shock. He wasn't just looking at 2D as a warm body which wasn't going to fight back. No, it was something about 2D specifically that was the problem.

He tore his eyes away and headed for the door, walking very carefully, as if his mental turmoil was leaving him equally physically unbalanced.

"Hey, where're you goin'?" 2D asked.

"I, uh, have to, uh ... do ... something," Murdoc said, inarticulately. "'Scuse me a minute."

He closed the studio door behind him, then ran to his room, shut himself in, and blocked the door.

The other bandmates looked at each other.

"What's he doin'?" asked 2D, blinking stupidly.

"Beats me. I'd say he wanted to hide 'cause he felt bad, but this is _Murdoc_ we're talkin' about ..."

* * *

Murdoc lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling through the clouds of cigarette smoke, pondering his predicament. _Okay, I can't deny it any longer; I'm attracted to a bloke. Girly-looking bloke, but still a bloke, and I know that for a fact after a year of changing his clothes. I s'pose I can live with that, on the condition that nobody ever finds out. What's bothering me is that I'm attracted to a bloke who has done nothing but irritate me since we met, walks like a Muppet, talks like an asthmatic ten-year-old even though his singing sounds fine, can't tie his own shoelaces at the age of twenty, and tattooed "KFC" on his arm even though he's a vegetarian. Okay, so I don't exactly look for brains in women either, but surely there has to be _some_ kind of cutoff point. Huh. So did I suppress these tendencies because my brother and the lads would have killed me if I hadn't, or because I subconsciously realised that I apparently have the worst taste ever? I mean, there's a couple of billion men in the world, and out of all of those I pick _him?_ Sheesh. Stupidity must be catching._

In all seriousness, the former reason was probably a pretty good one. When you have a brother who breaks your nose in two places for using his record player without permission, you learn to be damn careful not to express any ideas or behaviour that would give him another excuse to dole out beatings. Apparently Murdoc had put up the homophobe front so well for so long he'd started to believe it himself.

Sure, Murdoc didn't _like_ faggots, but then he couldn't say he liked anyone else much either. He'd always believed in equal-opportunity misanthropy, regardless of gender, age, race, or whatever else; it saved a lot of trouble. Genuine hate was better saved for individual people.

_Okay. So I know what's what. Now what do I _do_ about it?_ he wondered.

Best option was probably to do nothing. If this got out, his career in music would be ... well, "ruined" was probably too strong a word, it might even increase publicity and therefore sales, but he'd forever be known as "that gay guy". Even if, technically, that wasn't true – he indulged in a brief fantasy involving Kate Bush just to be sure. Yep, at least fifty percent of his heterosexuality seemed safe, but the public probably wouldn't be bright enough to pay attention to that.

And if his brother found out ... well, Satan forbid his brother find out. Okay, so he was miles away now, but if Hannibal heard the Niccals line really had spawned a fence-sitter he would do everything in his power to find _some_ way to make Murdoc suffer for it.

He considered whether it would be possible to let 2D know. The kid idolised him, despite all the horrible things Murdoc had put him through, and would probably stay quiet about it if told to. Yeah, tempting ... Then again, what if he said no?

Murdoc chewed on his cig and started to mentally list possible outcomes: _Best case scenario, either he says yes and I get an easy guilt-free fuck and possibly a more-easily-manipulated Two Dents, or he says no but keeps his mouth shut. Or he could completely misinterpret it as actually _meaning_ something, and I get stuck with him either stalking me or leaving the band with a broken heart. Or he could announce it to all and sundry, either because he's disgusted or frightened or just too stupid to get that I want it kept quiet, which would mean I'd have to murder him, which I have to admit I'd rather avoid if at all possible. So the odds suggest I'd be down one keyboardist, and the chances of gettin' a second new band member shipped in from Japan are just a tad lower than I'd like to bet on. And pretty much every one of those outcomes is likely to end with that fat nosey bastard Russel finding out and coming down on me like a ton of bricks. So yeah, better not say anything. Can I keep something like this secret? Well, I've managed to keep it secret from myself for thirty-two years, so that shouldn't be a problem._ He chuckled humourlessly.

_But what if I get another opportunity like when he was in the coma and ... well. Never really figured I'd do something like that, but up till that point I always assumed it was less because of any kind of moral objection than because it was too damn risky to be worth the bother. But no, I had the chance, nobody would ever know if I had fucked the dullard, even him, and I chickened out. Can't believe I actually disturbed _myself._ So, if I got the chance again, and I knew he wouldn't know, would I do it?_

Murdoc pondered for a long time, and finally said to himself, "Nah, he's safe."

He was pretty sure of that. After all, he'd considered it and stopped himself once. He was a thoroughly horrible person and he was happy with that fact, but some things even he had to admit he wasn't comfortable with. He wasn't sure whether he should be ashamed of that, but whatever. Despite public misconceptions, Satanism was really about doing what you wanted to do, not doing evil for the hell of it (he tried to ignore the horrible pun), so it was okay.

He looked down at the floor and tapped his inverted cross. "Sorry, boss, but ... that's just not my style. I'll go set fire to a few things to make up for it, 'kay?"

Not exactly feeling happy, but at least a little more at ease with himself, he got up and stretched. "Okay, that's enough existential angst. Time to get back to what's actually important here."

**(Author's Notes: Awwww. Even Evil Has Standards. Speaking of which, many thanks to whoever put this fic on the Fanfic Recommendations page on TVTropes! Yay! You like me! Considering putting a page for this up on Troper Works – thoughts?**

**Murdoc has canonically declared that he likes Kate Bush. Can't remember where, though.**

**I've now seen the "On Melancholy Hill" video. Awesome. Also seen the "Superfast Jellyfish" video. Am I the only person who finds that one insanely creepy for reasons I can't really explain? Something about the jellyfishes' expressions, I think.**

**Just one more chapter to go!)**


	12. Chapter 12

"Good news, fellers, I found us a venue!" Murdoc burst into the room, enthusiastically waving a notebook and an envelope full of photos. "Camden Brownhouse, fifth of November!"

"What, Bonfire Night? Awww, I was hoping we'd have fireworks," said 2D, sounding disappointed.

Murdoc was in too good a mood for this to irritate him much. "You can play with fireworks any time, dullard! This is important!" He handed over the notebook, showing Russel and 2D the information; time, directions, etc.

"The Camden Brownhouse? I've heard of that place," Russel said, looking up from the notes. "Isn't it kind of a dump?"

"That 'dump' is famous for its live music, fatarse. Every band in the county has to play there at least once, it's a rite of passage."

"Are any of the bands that play there actually any good?"

"Yeah. Us," said Murdoc smugly. "We have a secret weapon, though. Whiffy Smiffy owes me a favour, and I'll be inviting him along."

"Who?"

"Talent scout over at EMI. Best in the business, trust me. He's heard me play before, but never with decent backup – I told you my last few bands were shit. He likes my playing, though. Oi, Noodle!" Noodle looked up from her guitar. "You understand any of that?" Murdoc asked her. Noodle stared blankly. _"Con-cert!" _Murdoc repeated, loudly and slowly and accompanied by sweeping arm gestures, as if that would help. "Fifth of No-vem-ber!" Noodle continued to stare blankly. Murdoc sighed and jabbed a grimy finger at the Les Paul. "Play that when we tell you to." Noodle got the message and beamed. Murdoc sighed. He'd always loathed children even back when he was one, but Noodle was okay. At least as long as she was sitting still.

"Speaking louder isn't goin' to help her learn faster, Muds," Russel told him.

"Meh. She knows how to use that guitar, that's all that matters. She at least memorised a few song titles? We need to be able to tell her what we're playing next, if nothing else."

"Yep!" 2D said proudly. "We taught 'er. Watch ... Noodle, do 'Ghost Train'!" Noodle immediately strummed out the opening bars of the correct song. "Okay, 'Punk'!" Smoothly, Noodle changed songs without missing a beat.

Russel grinned and patted Noodle's head. "Looks like she's as ready as she'll ever be."

"Excellent!" Murdoc opened the photo envelope. "Oh yeah, and I got the photos of us back from Snappy Snaps – see, here's that really good groupshot, and a few closeups of each of us. I'll send a few off to Smiffy, and we can pick some for making posters."

2D took the pictures of himself, flicked through them, then stopped and blinked worriedly at the last few. "Uh, Murdoc, I don't mean to complain, but ... shouldn't we use pictures of my _face?"_

"Look, denthead, what's stuffed in those undersized jeans of yours is our key to drawin' the interest of every teenage girl in the country. We gotta use what we've got, okay?"

"I'm not really sure I'm comfortable with that ..."

"Fine, if you don't want these goin' up, I'll chuck 'em." Murdoc removed the offending shots from 2D's hands and surreptitiously tucked them into his pocket for future perusal. _Hey, I've accepted the situation, might as well enjoy it._

As he turned away from 2D, Murdoc wasn't sure if he'd seen what he thought he'd seen, but if he had, 2D had given him an odd little glance, hiding under his hair, and blushed slightly pink. Hm. For the sake of the band, Murdoc reminded himself to be cautious, but he made a mental note to keep an eye on Stu. If the band didn't go according to plan, he might at least get a decent consolation prize.

* * *

The big day came, and the band parked the rented van outside the Camden Brownhouse. There looked to be a pretty big crowd; Murdoc knew why, unfortunately. He'd become quite a familiar figure at the Brownhouse with various lineups, and crowds had started to gather to see how much worse each successive band could get. _Yeah, laugh it up, you fuckers,_ he thought. _Gorillaz are different. By tonight, if all goes well, my luck'll be changed for the better, and the music world will get a much-needed shakeup._

"You said this Smiffy guy was gon' be here, right?" Russel asked, opening the back of the van and hauling out his drums. One of the posters they'd stuck to the side was coming loose, and he rubbed the corner till it stuck back on. "Hope this glue comes off the paint job when we're done," he muttered.

Murdoc took a drag on one of the foul-smelling extra-strong cigs he saved for occasions when he needed even more nicotine than usual. "Yeah, he called me and said he's in. Told me he likes some of my songs and he's keen to hear 'em played properly for once."

Smiffy had in fact said this, even if he'd followed it up by nervously asking "You're not the one who's going to be singing, right?" Murdoc had refrained from calling Smiffy any of the interesting things he'd wanted to call him, forcing himself to remember that he needed to stay on the scout's good side.

"Okay, equipment ... Drumkit and sticks?"

"Check and check." Russel used the sticks to point at the drums.

"Keyboard?"

"Check!" 2D declared happily.

"Guitar?"

"Hai!" Noodle held the instrument up for inspection, "guitar" having been one of the few English words she'd already picked up.

"Bass, check; amps, check ... and a little extra help from the Dark Lord of Metal," said Murdoc proudly, producing a much-folded photo of Black Sabbath from his wallet. "My lucky photo. Ozzie signed it an' everything."

Russel read the inscription aloud. "'Dear Murdoc: Stop following me! Ozzie.'" He looked back at Murdoc. "So, uh, did you stop?"

"Yes. Stupid restraining orders ... Well, break a leg, fellers," said Murdoc cheerily, slapping Russel and 2D on the back and ruffling Noodle's hair. "And you too, luv."

2D blinked. "Oi, Murdoc, did you just grab my bum?"

"No," said Murdoc, as innocently as he could.

"Yes you did!"

"Oh, yeah, I guess I did. Forgot you're taller than me, I was tryin' to pat your back and missed."

"Oh, that's okay then."

Russel glanced behind 2D and sighed. "Muds, take the 'Kick Me' sign off him."

2D twisted around awkwardly, trying to see his own back, and spotted the sign taped to his bottom. "Hey!"

"Spoilsport," Murdoc muttered, removing the sign and inwardly sniggering.

"There, see? You did it again!" 2D accused him, blushing violently red.

"I did not! The tape got caught on yer jeans!"

Noodle giggled and pointed. "Kekekeke. Shonen-ai?"

Not knowing what the word meant, Russel patted her head and said "Yeah, they're bein' funny, aren't they?" Turning to the arguing men, he snapped "KNOCK IT OFF! Nobody should be grabbin' anyone's butt! We're supposed to be actin' _professional _here! Geez, and I thought there was only one eight-year-old in this band."

"Fine, fine, whatever ... ya humourless bugger," Murdoc grumbled. "Okay, we've got everything ..."

Something across the street caught his eye. He turned and looked, to see some very familiar figures lurking across the road. They had been watching the band unload the car with some interest, but when they recognised Murdoc they immediately started conversing among themselves and pretended not to have seen him. He returned the favour, hurriedly turning away and pretending not to see them, but kept watching them out of the corner of his eye as they turned and walked off down the road. When they thought he wasn't looking, they looked back, peering curiously at 2D – they must have recognised the blue hair. One of them said something to the others, who all burst out laughing.

It happened so quickly Murdoc, once again, wasn't sure whether or not he'd imagined it, and he didn't dare react in case he had just been seeing things, but he could have sworn that, just before they walked around the corner and out of sight, Billy-Boy had waved and mouthed _Good luck!_

Huh. That was weird. He was getting one of those unfamiliar feelings again. What was it this time? ... Holy shit. He was _happy._ Really, genuinely happy. When was the last time he'd felt this good? He couldn't remember. Maybe when 2D had just come out of the coma and reawakened his hope ...

He proudly inspected his bandmates. Russel; bit of a stick-in-the-mud, but his musical talent more than made up for any difficulties in getting along with him or his ghost collection, and at least he'd been understanding about the kidnapping thing. Noodle; annoying, hyperactive, and incomprehensible, but talented as hell and (though he'd never actually say so) a nice kid. And Stuart; stupid, gormless, dozy, weird-looking, irritating, enviable, pitiable, motherfucking _beautiful _Stuart. He still didn't know whether Stuart really had given him that look earlier, but at that moment he didn't care. The band was together and he knew they'd be a hit. Anything else could wait.

"You okay?" asked Russel. "Your eye's watering a bit."

"Is it? Oh, um, must be having a problem with my, er, contact lens," Murdoc hastily explained.

"No, it's the black eye, not the red one."

"Uh ... the black one _is_ the one with the contact lens." Murdoc wiped his eyes on his hand and changed the subject. "So, sure you've all got everything?" The others nodded. "Remember everything we rehearsed?" Another round of nods. "Ready to go?" More nods. "Okay then!" Murdoc gleefully rubbed his hands together, then picked up El Diablo and stroked it possessively before tucking it under his arm and heading for the door of the pub.

_Time for us to make our first big impression. Brace yourself, world, here we come._

**THE END.**

* * *

**(YAY! I actually finished a multichapter fic for once! Hope you liked! Sorry Murdoc didn't get what he wanted out of Stu onscreen, but they're just starting out, he's got plenty of time in the future :) Don't ask where an eight-year-old picked up what shonen-ai is - put it down to Rule of Funny.**

**Remember when you used to have to get photos developed at the camera shop or the chemists', before digital cameras? And when people were allowed to smoke inside pubs in the UK? Geez, I'm not even twenty-one yet and I feel old just thinking about it ...**

**While I'm here, allow me to plug a friend's Gorillaz LJ community: "maybeintime". It needs people. Also, the Gorillaz page on TVTropes. The "Wild Mass Guessing" page is especially fun. Anyway, I hope to write more in this fandom in future, and I'll see you all around when I do. Thanks to all my readers, and goodbye for now!)**


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